


Tipping Point

by nh8343



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Arguably unhealthy relationship, Corruption, Dystopia, Fallout influences, Gen, Genre-Typical Violence, M/M, Mentioned Past Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Characters, Non-Graphic Torture, Sci-Fi Elements, critique of religious institutions, cybernetic enhancements and limb replacements, every character has a role to play, mentions of human trafficking, this is fairly dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27061426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nh8343/pseuds/nh8343
Summary: Decades of corruption and exploitation have brought them to this point: children stolen and sold for profit, violence so widespread that there are nearly more metal limbs than flesh, the city’s elites paying for their own salvation while everything else falls to rot outside their walls.Taeyong wants to save as many people as he can. Yuta wants to watch it all burn. Doyoung wants nothing to do with either of them until circumstances lead him to choose a side.The world will never be the same.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta, Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 5
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Has it been seven months since we last saw each other? Yes. Am I also bringing you a whole 45,000 words? Also yes. The state of the world made it hard to finish, considering this fic is darker than most things I usually write, but here we are at last -- enjoy!
> 
> (Updates each Wednesday and Saturday.)

To anyone else, it would look like Doyoung isn't breathing. He's put countless hours into perfecting the technique, forcing air down to balloon somewhere in his stomach while his chest remains firmly pressed against the ground. The last thing he needs is for his vision to stray even half a centimeter from where it's peering down the scope of his sniper rifle. A second shot is a rare opportunity he can never afford to expect.

A few seconds more. Doyoung bites his bottom lip in concentration but doesn't dare blink. The spot of color in the scope moves inches to the left, adjusting position just so.

_Fire._

Most of the kickback is absorbed by the metal rig protruding from within Doyoung's arm, moving him only a hair backward from his original vantage point. A wisp of smoke curls up from the rifle's muzzle before disappearing into the air. When Doyoung looks down the scope a second time, his target isn't moving.

Never one to waste time, Doyoung disengages the rig and holsters the rifle onto his back. The mechanism locks up halfway through, making him grimace, but one hit to his forearm starts it back up again. By the time the cogs and wires are back in place, Doyoung is halfway down the rocky path he'd taken up the cliff, waving away a cloud of dust from his final slide to the ground. The sun is nearly going down, he notes. Good for cover, but bad for an actual kill. While Doyoung could deal just fine with modifications on his limbs, he hasn't been adventurous enough to replace an eye with a night-vision equivalent. That, and he knows Taeil would charge him a fortune for a non-critical surgery. Even all in favors instead of credits, that's much more debt than Doyoung is comfortable being in.

There's a small pool of blood on the ground where Doyoung's bullet had hit its mark right between the eyes. Surprise rests in the cougar’s frozen snarl, but not pain. As clean a kill as he was going to get. Any closer vantage point and he ran a high chance of becoming the hunted rather than the hunter. The more untamed the wastelands outside the city became, the wilder its inhabitants seemed to grow. Taking one of these creatures on at close range would mean certain death.

Not this time, however. This time, Doyoung avoids the cougar's claws and drags it back to a sheltered area below the cliff. Setting up a campfire and preparing his freshly-caught dinner is as second nature as it is to take stock of his equipment. He sets out the contents of his pack by category and updates the mental list in his head of scavenged supplies to watch out for, along with the running count of how many days he could theoretically survive with the worst possible luck. Most days, that number walks the fine line between passable and downright concerning. Much like while walking a real tightrope, Doyoung has learned not to look too far ahead.

Another evening, he might have taken a closer look at his arm rig. This isn't the first time as of late that it needed a solid hit to finish stowing away, which he probably needs to address before it goes from annoyance to life-or-death mistake. But under tonight's fading sun, Doyoung has other plans. He eats enough to fill his stomach and stores several extra portions in automatic sealing bags he'd been introduced to a few months back in one of the villages. As soon as the light is low enough to provide some cover and his camp is stripped bare, he doubles back to the fringes of the settlement he'd been at earlier today.

Despite his precautions, Doyoung half-expects there to be widespread panic as he approaches the nearest houses. The cynic in him has trained itself to always expect the worst, which more often than not isn’t too far removed from reality. It's a pleasant surprise, then, when the place is just like when he left: quiet. He slips down a back alley, taking three different turns, and can't help the sneer on his face when he sees the body propped up against the back of an adjacent building.

This kill hadn't been a cougar. It also hadn't been painless. The discolored sheen of red-brown smeared down the man's throat said just as much. When Doyoung hunted for survival, he didn't regret taking a life, but he certainly didn't find joy in it beyond improving upon his own skills. This man's death was not for Doyoung's survival. It wasn't the first. It won't be the last.

It won't be, that is, if Doyoung doesn't raise alarms and get himself arrested or killed for the blood that is now quite literally on his hands. He hikes the body up over his shoulders, checking that it's not still trailing blood, and darts back through the alley with his footsteps as quiet as he can humanly make them while carrying the extra weight. If he can make it out of the city, the man can rot somewhere that prying eyes will never find him.

And Doyoung will be one step closer to finishing this chapter of his story.

⚖

Mark can deal with the occasional shortage at the market, the rude inclinations of his next-door neighbor, and the frequent dust storms that tend to roll through the village during the summer months. Really, he can. But acid rain? Anyone who doesn't want to put a hole through a wall at the thought of it either hasn't been through the unpleasant experience themselves or insists on living in a state of denial.

Putting a hole through a wall, however, is not what Mark is doing. He doesn't have the luxury. Partly due to the aforementioned dust storms and mostly because his mother had instilled in him (gently, and with great care) the value of not being a useless excuse for a human being, he instead perches himself on the roof of his house to work on repairing the damage that the latest deluge had wrought.

Much of the house's structure is metal, reinforced by any spare scrap Mark could trade for and fairly resistant to the chemicals mixed into toxic rainwater. The wood and insulation underneath, unfortunately, can start to get eaten away in a matter of hours or minutes, depending on the severity of the storm. With the current shortage of supplies, the most Mark can do is patch up the holes and spread the non-metal layers of protection as evenly as he can manage.

(He wishes his father was still here to shout encouragement from underneath the open hole. He wishes his mother was still here to take up a second hammer and join him on top of the roof. Mark is past the point of such thoughts bringing despair with them, but they still pull a sigh from his lips.)

He does discover that he's not alone in his toil. Halfway through moving to the next sheet of metal and wiping a thin film of sweat from his forehead, Mark catches sight of a woman waving at him in greeting from the front path. The man at her side gives him a good-natured smile. "That's some good handiwork there," he notes.

"Thanks." Mark is sure they haven't been introduced before, but it wouldn't surprise him to have new faces in the neighborhood. Though he'd been living in the village for as long as he can remember, the nature of many wanderers here was to do just that: wander. People come and go like the wind, staying for a season and them moving on to whatever they consider greener pastures.

"Did you two just move here?" Mark asks, just to make sure. "I don't think we've met before."

"Very recently. We ran into a bit of a bad spot in our last home, so it was fortunate we ended up here." The woman gestures to the metal plates in the man's jaw, to the copper-colored replacements peeking out around her shoulder. "I won't ask you to compare implants."

Mark shrugs. "You wouldn't get very far. I still have all of my original parts. If you want to trade stories, Jaemin down at the market is the one to talk to."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"And you live here alone?" It's the man asking this time, which prompts a short glare from the woman and a well-placed elbow in his side. Mark feels his smile become a little more forced, still uncomfortable with the question and its answer's implications.

"I do," he says simply. "Have for a while."

Thankfully, the man stops prying. The woman, still looking apologetic, gestures to the hammer still hanging limply from Mark's hand. "Would you like some help with that? I've been told I'm not bad with fixing things up."

Mark almost turns down the offer on impulse. He's generally not one to ask for assistance, and this isn't anything that he hasn't dealt with before. But he can't deny that the novelty of acid rain repairs ran out long ago, nor that he wouldn't mind an extra set of hands to hold down the sheets while he hammers. And if they offered...

"Actually, I'd really appreciate that. Let me grab a few more tools from inside."

He scales back down the side of the house with practiced ease to slip back inside. Normally, shutting the front door would cut him off from the dust and wind of the outdoors. Mark grimaces when he sees how much the gaping hole in that protection has let the elements slip inside his space. There's already piles of fine dust settling in patterns on the floor wherever sunlight touches. Looks like he's found yet another chore to add to his list today.

Sunlight and unwanted dust aren't the only things let in by the hole in the roof. Voices that would normally be inaudible are carried through the open air to bring snippets of a conversation to Mark's ears, just familiar enough that he can make it out as the man and woman from before.

"━need to strike now before there's more witnesses around."

"In his own home where he knows every nook and cranny better than we do? I'm sure that will work out well."

"Oh, come now, we've faced worse situations. He's just one boy."

The blood drains from Mark's face as quickly as he'd scaled back down the house, if not faster. What he'd mistaken as friendliness and awkward first meeting jitters was a cover to...what? Rob him? Hurt him? Whatever these people's intentions are, they know he lives alone. Even if Mark had ever been in a fight in his life (he hasn't), he doubts he could take on two strangers with the best weapon in his arsenal as a rather misshapen saucepan. No, he has to leave. Now.

The house has a back door that Mark rarely ever uses. This fact is accentuated by the long, drawn-out creak it makes as Mark gingerly steps outside, rusty from disuse. Maybe it's his imagination, but it seems to be even louder when he locks it back shut. But if the robbers aren't expecting him to make a break for it...

"Did you hear that?"

"Let's check it out. I'm not in the mood to deal with a runner today."

Stomach dropping to his feet, Mark creeps from his current position to behind his neighbor's house. Only one more to go, and then he can take the north road to the edge of the village. He doubts anyone will be up this early, but maybe if he can get there in time to ask for help━

Mark hears the sound of a door being forced in behind him, a pair of angry shouts coalescing into a clear "After him!"

Mark runs.

⚖

Mark doesn't stop moving, even as the north road turns into open dirt beneath his feet and the edge of the village has come and gone. Not once does he dare turn back and see how close his pursuers are. He's always been fast, but from the sound of their conversation, these two have experience with their particular brand of crime. Mark's confidence in not being outrun is much lower than he’d like.

He wishes he had a destination in mind. He wishes he'd caved like the other village dwellers and bought himself some kind of weapon to use in self-defense. He wishes that the man and woman would have picked any other target, or even better: no target at all. Mark hasn't ever been beyond the village border except to have one picnic that he vaguely remembers when he was seven years old. Where does he possibly go from here?

Fortunately for Mark, that question answers itself before his lungs and legs decide to give out on him entirely. He nearly chokes on air in relief as he sees another village come into view through the dust. Mark has never considered himself one prone to crying until he passes the threshold of buildings enough to slip into an alleyway and out of the open wasteland. The stray drops of relief that do make it to the surface are quickly brushed off with his sleeve before they can fall. The hardest part is over. He can hide from them until they give up the chase, or ask someone more qualified for help, or━

"Shit!"

Mark isn't the one who swears. He's the one who runs face-first into another man trekking through the village's back alleys, a man who promptly utters said curse and drops the load he was carrying. If Mark didn't know better, he'd say that it almost looks like...

No, it _is_ a dead body. Only utter shock keeps the scream in Mark's throat tampered down. "Did you...you didn't kill him, did you?" Mark chokes out.

"I did."

The stranger doesn't hesitate. He stares Mark down with a flat expression, a silent "And what are you going to do about it?" clear on his face.

In other circumstances, the answer to that would probably be either "mind my own business" or "report you to the authorities", but the sound of approaching pairs of footsteps reminds Mark that he's not in a position to be rational. "Please," he says instead, letting the issue of the dead man go. "Help me."

"I don't even know you."

"I'm Mark. _Please_."

The man lets out a sigh that Mark personally thinks is a hint too dramatic considering he isn't the one currently running for his life. Then he grabs Mark by the arm and shoves him into a small opening between two buildings that Mark hadn't noticed in the shadows, dragging the body behind both of them. Either the man has an affinity for corpses, or more likely, he wants this particular one to disappear somewhere he isn't. Mark thinks it's a sad state of affairs when he finds himself hoping for the latter option as a best case scenario.

The two of them are silent as Mark's pursuers pass by their hiding place with only a brief pause. "He had to go this way," the woman's voice snarls, and then they're taking off, finally letting Mark breathe again. Even with the smell of the dead man in the confined space, the air is still sweet when it's laced with the relief of temporary escape. He nevertheless appreciates when the man removes both himself and the body to let Mark gingerly crawl out from their hiding spot on his hands and knees.

When Mark hoists himself back to his feet and brushes the dirt off his knees, he notices the man's eyes scanning him from head to toe. It makes him feel rather exposed and even more wary, considering what the last two people who'd sized him up had tried to do.

"So, you're a fleshie," the man says. "And you've got skinjackers after you."

"I'm a _what_?"

The man stares blankly at him, like he's waiting for the punchline. As soon as he realizes one isn't coming, his eyebrows knit together in confusion. "A fleshie? No metal parts yet, still all skin and bones? Ring any bells?"

"No one back home ever used that word. Maybe it's different where you come from, Mister...?"

"Doyoung, not Mister," the man ━ Doyoung ━ says with a wince. "And since you clearly never left your village, I'm guessing you don't know that there's plenty of skinjackers who would gladly sell a young fleshie to the highest bidder in Eluse for a life of slavery, either."

"No," Mark admits with growing horror. "I don't understand. Why would someone pay to have a...fleshie?"

"You're easier to hurt, less likely to fight back, and more susceptible to any of that mind control shit they keep dreaming up in the city." Doyoung's lip curls as he says it, clearly disgusted with the explanation himself. "I guess when you already have every material object, owning another life is the only step up."

It's a jarring feeling, realizing how much there is that Mark didn't know. Has his life really been so sheltered that he'd never heard a word of this before? Did anyone else in the village know, either the long-term dwellers or the temporary drifters? He'd find it hard to believe anything Doyoung is telling him, if it weren't for the very real skinjackers that he'd only just escaped. To think they lived in a world where this was apparently so commonplace that someone like Mark could be abducted right off the streets without anyone blinking an eye...

"What am I supposed to do?" Mark asks aloud. He finds his thoughts spiraling dangerously toward panic. "If I go back to my house, these skinjackers already figured out where I live, and others could already know. If what you're saying is true, and I'm not safe anywhere else...what choice does that leave me?"

He sees Doyoung visibly hesitate. The other man seems reluctant to get his next words out, but whatever conflict that wages inside his mind is resolved in the next few moments. "I can get you to safety," Doyoung says. "Not the whole way. Most of it will be on you to make it to the end. But I can guarantee that it will give you more of a fighting chance than trying to survive on your own."

Mark finds his gaze drawn to the body still leaning against the wall adjacent to their previous hiding spot. He must look as visibly wary as he feels, because Doyoung snorts. "That was a personal matter. I don't kill people on the regular."

This morning, Mark would balk at the idea of putting his safety in the hands of a stranger. This morning, Mark also wasn't on the run for his life. And he thinks there's something intrinsically trust-forming about hiding together in cramped spaces and waiting for danger to pass by none the wiser.

"Where are we going?" he says by way of agreement.

Doyoung nods in approval before hauling the body back over his shoulders, carefully maneuvering one lifeless arm so that it didn't catch on the sniper rifle strapped across his back. "A place whose name you'll get very familiar with," he says. "The Railroad."

⚖

Donghyuck has to be honest: he kind of misses the days of non-chemically created food. Sure, this new stuff they've transitioned to at the shop over the past year is much more economical and tastes objectively good, but it's hard to sneak extra bites or the occasional snack when the chemical reaction makes it obvious food is involved.

One more packet from the box that's labeled "Lunch" in blue tape, and a side of rice and vegetables is forming in the center of the pan Donghyuck has been watching for the past few minutes. He fishes out the rest of the food with a tongs, taking one more long sniff that makes his mouth water, and splits it almost evenly between his plate and Taeil's.

(What can he say? He's a growing boy.)

Donghyuck is sneaking one more piece of beef off Taeil's plate when the bell to the shop chimes. "Be there in a second!" he calls to whoever's listening. Taeil, hopefully. It wouldn't be the first time that he went out for an errand in the marketplace and left Donghyuck to fend for himself for an hour or two.

"Don't worry, it's just me," a familiar voice calls back, and Donghyuck perks up in interest. Doyoung hasn't been here in...what, about a month? Longer than usual, that's for sure.

When he makes it to the front of the shop, Donghyuck passes Taeil his portion of lunch, who sends him a quick smile. Then he takes his usual spot on top of the table on the opposite side of the room and gives Doyoung a mock-salute in greeting. Doyoung isn't alone this time. There's a nervous fleshie standing half-behind him who Donghyuck eyes curiously while he digs into his own lunch. This day just got a lot more interesting.

"Not that it isn't good to see you, Doyoung," Taeil says, "but what are you doing here?"

Doyoung pulls Mark further inside so that he's standing next to him instead of peeking out from behind his shoulder. "Skinjackers came for the kid," he says. "He doesn't have anywhere else to go, so I told him I'd bring him to the Railroad. He got pretty scraped up during the escape. I know it's not your usual thing, but I was hoping...?"

"I can take a look if it's not serious." Taeil motions for Mark to come closer. The fleshie looks nervous to get less than a few feet away from his designated protector, but Taeil is the kind of person who makes it easy to trust him. Donghyuck will gladly admit he knows that from experience.

As soon as the two of them disappear into the back of the shop, Donghyuck leans closer to Doyoung with a conspiratorial grin. "Let me guess: you need that sniper rig fixed again?"

Doyoung's lips thin. "That's a possibility," he begrudgingly admits, and Donghyuck doesn't disguise his cackling. They moved past that point ages ago.

"Well, come here," he says, engaging the mechanism as soon as Doyoung's arm is in range. "What did I tell you last time? It's clever and intricate, which means you can't just whack it around and expect it to still work like it's supposed to. Honestly, it's like you don't even appreciate my work."

"You don't seriously think I'm hitting it against walls all day, do you?" Doyoung says with a huff. "Maybe the problem is that you didn't build it sturdy enough for the kickback it has to put up with."

"More like the _personality_ it has to put up with."

Doyoung shakes his head instead of honoring the jab with a response, but there is a hint of a smile on his face. Just as planned. It helps mask the slight discomfort that Donghyuck knows comes from tinkering around with the section directly next to where metal connects into Doyoung's actual skin. The teasing isn't entirely for Donghyuck's own enjoyment. Entirely.

"What's the kid's name?" Donghyuck asks as he unscrews one of the extended hooks.

"Mark. And I don't think you can get away with calling him 'kid' since he's probably about your age."

"But if we're measuring by experience, I think we both agree I can get away with it." Another screw falls into Donghyuck's waiting hand. He reaches in between two of the gears to rewire the main cable next, squinting in concentration. "Not gonna' lie, I'm surprised you're helping him out. You're not normally one to bring strays with you."

"He was insistent, just nice enough that I felt bad saying no, and didn't seem like he'd take no for an answer anyway," Doyoung says with a shrug. "Remind you of someone I know?"

"Not a clue." With one good crank, Donghyuck feels the far section of the rig come unstuck. He rescrews both hooks in and tests the whole thing twice before settling back into his sitting position with a satisfied smirk. "Good as new. And if I asked about the blood you've got on your shirt...?"

Doyoung shakes his head. "I'd tell you not to ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to. Eat your rice."

And Donghyuck would, gladly, but Taeil chooses that moment to return with a newly-bandaged Mark. Curiosity has and always will outweigh the hunger growling in Donghyuck's stomach. What is he meant to do when Doyoung drifts back over to talk to Taeil in private, leaving the fleshie kid standing awkwardly in the middle of the room? _Not_ pry?

"Hey," Donghyuck says. He's far from loud, but Mark still jumps. Either he's twitchy by nature, or he's been through more than he should have to make it here. Donghyuck decides he's decent enough of a person to assume the latter and not call him out for it. "I'm Donghyuck. Doyoung said you're Mark?"

"That's me."

"You can come closer; I'm not going to bite."

Mark does take a few more steps in his direction, tips of his ears coloring. It's not just nervousness, though, Donghyuck realizes. Mark keeps making shifty eyes at the visible metal scattered over his body. He can't tell if the kid is being judgmental or just genuinely confused. Not one for dancing around the bush, Donghyuck decides to ask him point-blank.

"I don't know about where you come from, but most people consider it rude to stare."

Mark's eyes widen immediately. "Sorry, that's not...I'm new to a lot of this. Before today, I didn't realize all of _that_ was a thing," he says, gesturing vaguely toward Donghyuck's wrist. "Fleshies, skinjackers, whatever's going on in Eluse...Doyoung told me some of it, but I'm still learning."

Curious. Donghyuck has met a few fleshies before, despite his line of work not exactly catering to their needs. Connections to the Railroad that Taeil won't go into detail about ensure that every once in a while a runaway will show up on their doorstep. The thing about fleshies, however, is that they know they're being hunted. The ones who don't are the ones who are already taken. The fact that Mark managed to survive this long in his little bubble of safety would be impressive if it wasn't such a clear disadvantage for him now.

"Since you're that curious," Donghyuck says to break the ice, "let me show you. I save all of my best tinkering projects for myself. This part of my wrist here can fold out to give me a few extra fingers when I'm doing precision tuning. I've got a work in progress on my hip for an extendable toolbelt, but that's not ready for an audience. And this..." He taps at the fine line that traces a divide along his throat and the right side of his neck. "This is where I can amplify my voice to either scare away problem clients or annoy Taeil. It's some of my best work."

This time, he allows Mark to stare. He admittedly finds himself preening under the impressed once-over his handiwork elicits. Being able to brag to someone who's never seen anything to compare it to is a welcome opportunity.

"Is that what you do here?" Mark asks him. "Modifications? Upgrades?"

"Taeil does a lot of the heavy lifting since I'm still his apprentice. But I do most of the non-major surgeries. I'm guessing you've never heard of a flesh doctor?" He sees Mark quickly shake his head. "We mostly replace limbs or other parts of the body lost to infection, explosions, anything like that. But occasionally we do ‘upgrades’, like you said. Those are the most fun. Not something you're probably wanting to get yet, though."

Mark visibly shudders at the thought, looking immediately mortified at his reaction. He's just starting to apologize when Donghyuck lets out a high-pitched peal of laughter. "Oh my god, you should have seen your _face_ ," he gets out before the moment can pass.

The day's excitement is over much too soon. Doyoung comes back over to pull Mark back into the big bad world outside the shop, and Donghyuck is left with Taeil and his tinkering projects. He watches through the front door as the pair disappear out of view, shaking his head to himself with the hint of a smile still on a face. They didn't have enough time to really get to know each other. He still probably won't ever understand what it's like to be in a fleshie's shoes. But this one?

Donghyuck hopes he makes it.

⚖

Doyoung feels antsy as they walk through the settlement. He's spent so much time moving from place to place undetected, skirting the edges of civilization and keeping it at arm's length, that the simple act of walking along a street makes him feel like nothing more than a moving target. Considering his present company, they probably _are_ targets. He hopes the spare fabric he hooked together as a half-cloak for Mark covers enough of him to not give anyone the idea that he's worth a hefty sum of credits.

The settlement they're passing through isn't like most of the others Doyoung has spent time in. This close to Eluse, any trace of civilization still standing is more than likely allied with the rich and powerful who reside within the capital city's walls. If anything, one could probably consider this place a vacation spot for those well-off enough to treat the “simple life” like a novelty instead of a struggle for survival. Doyoung can't say he's happy to be here. Even if helping Mark out was the morally correct thing to do, he doesn't like their situation one bit. And he especially won't like it if someone with links to his previous targets identifies him enough to put out a kill order. That kind of complication is the last thing he needs.

But while Doyoung's tendencies tend toward silence when he's unsettled, Mark is the opposite. His own frazzled nerves seem to find comfort in letting them fall into anything but silence, filling in his knowledge gaps with every bit of information Doyoung will send his way.

"How do you know where we're going if you're not like me? A fleshie?" Mark asks him at one point. He hardly stumbles over the world this time.

Doyoung casts a sharp eye around their immediate vicinity before answering. He doesn't trust anyone who might overhear them, because there's no telling whose allegiances fall where. "I know the Railroad's leader personally," he says quietly when he's sure they're out of earshot from the nearest pedestrians. "Taeyong and I don't really speak anymore, but he does his job well. At least, from what I've heard."

"So once I make it there, I'm safe?"

"Not exactly." Doyoung seals his lips as they pass too close to another pair for his liking, casting a discrete glance back over his shoulder. "One of the Railroad's safehouses is in between this settlement and the neighboring one, in the fifth warehouse down from the old train tracks. If we get you there, they'll take you under their wing and eventually get you to safety."

Mark's eyebrows furrow. "So this Taeyong...why did he tell you about the safehouse?"

"He didn't. I got the updated location from Taeil. Taeil sends fleshies or rumors of fleshies the Railroad's way when he can, so he regularly gets fed information from them. You're lucky you made the right friends."

Lucky to survive at all, more like. Doyoung is still amazed Mark made it to his age, much less this far on the run, without ending up in a body bag or as some spoiled elite's human punching bag. The improbability of it is, dare he say, almost endearing.

Any conversation quickly comes to an end when they reach a market that spans the full city square. It takes constant reminding for Doyoung to keep his head from ducking down but his eyes still averted as they pass through the dense crowds. The chances of being recognized are low, he has to remind himself. He's gone to great lengths to cover his tracks. Anyone he associated with in the past is either accounted for or dead. The world doesn't revolve around him and everything he's done.

But it almost seems that way when Doyoung's next glance falls on a familiar face at the edge of the square. Not a face on his rapidly shrinking list, no, but potentially a much bigger problem. He breaks his silence to curse his bad luck, making Mark jump at the sudden change in his demeanor.

"We need to get out of here," Doyoung insists. "Quickly."

Now that Doyoung knows what he's looking for, he can see others in the crowd placed in strategic positions, can see a whole host of potential disasters that could be about to trigger. The question isn't whether each of them will happen, but how many. Because no matter what, chaos is coming.

With a firm hand on Mark's back, Doyoung weaves a path for them to the edge of the market. He purposely avoids looking up at all this time around, intent on avoiding any confrontation, and hopes whatever their next move ends up being, they can do it fast.

"Doyoung."

Not fast enough. A voice calls Doyoung's name, just before an explosion goes off at the north end of the market and the screams begin. Now that he's been seen, Doyoung knows that he'll be followed to the ends of the earth unless he puts an end to it. Immediately.

"Get to the safehouse," he says in a rush to Mark, who's staring at the remnants of the explosion with wide, terrified eyes. "You remember what I told you? Fifth warehouse from the train tracks. Hide there, wait for Johnny to show up, tell him I sent you. If he's suspicious, tell him I said to remember the eighth of November."

"But━"

"Go!"

Doyoung shoves him away when Mark seems hesitant to leave. The insistence in that action must be enough, because Mark lingers only a moment longer before he's running through the sea of panicking civilians, hopefully on his way to safety. Shit, he'd initially offered to help out of obligation, but Doyoung had grown attached enough to care if the kid makes it. How far can he really go with no weapon, no street smarts, and only a vague set of directions?

A second explosion goes off, followed by a third. The market is rapidly going up in flames. But Doyoung turns like he has all the time in the world to see one of the last remaining ghosts from his past approach him amidst the chaos.

"Yuta."

"So you haven't forgotten. For a second I thought you didn't recognize me." Yuta sweeps his eyes over Doyoung once, maybe checking for weapons, maybe checking to see how much he's changed. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"I'm not surprised to see you."

Yuta has certainly changed. In some ways, he looks just like he does in Doyoung's memories, but there's a certain darkness hovering around him now that wasn't there before, a certain sharpness in his eyes that makes him look far more intimidating. There's also distinctly more metal replacements scattered in sections up and down his body, even coming up to curl along the line of one cheekbone and cup his chin. If Doyoung is sure of one thing, it's that the man in front of him now is far more dangerous than the one he'd known years ago.

"What now?" he asks.

And like the flames and screams are nothing, Yuta looks at him with steel in his eyes and says, "Let's take a walk."

⚖

Mark had hoped he wouldn't be running again so soon after his last escape. His breaths are ragged as he comes to the tail-end of his dash away from the destruction in the village square. He doesn't know if the danger Doyoung sent away from is still hot on his heels. He doesn't know if _Doyoung_ is still in danger. All he does know is that there had been real urgency in the other man's voice when he told Mark to run, so running is what he's going to do.

Just like the pair of them had been doing before their separation, Mark does his best to keep to the edges and shadows. He highly doubts he'll be noticed with the explosions drawing focus, but if there's one thing Doyoung taught him it's to always expect the worst. When shops give way to smaller houses give way to ruins and rusty metal structures, only then does he let himself relax even a fraction. The old train tracks that separate this village from the next take a sharp turn before running in a straight shot down the line of warehouses, making it easy to count up to the magic number five.

The building is unlocked. Mark still fumbles with the handle, hands shaking with adrenaline, before he shuts himself securely inside. Even then, the space feels too open. He finds a small corner behind a stack of shipping crates and curls into himself with his back pressed against the wall. Breathe in, breathe out. Here, no one can get the jump on him, and he can keep an eye on the whole room. If anything moves, at least Mark will have a warning.

Is this what life is going to be like now? Constantly watching over his shoulder and feeling like the walls are closing in on him? No, Mark has to remind himself, this is only temporary. Once he makes it to the Railroad, they'll keep him safe. Doyoung had promised.

Doyoung...he can be trusted, can't he? There's something ugly simmering in Mark's chest that says he can only trust those like him, and the other man is nothing of the sort, by character or percentage of humanity he'd replaced with cogs and wires. But the part of him that still wants to believe, maybe foolishly, that most people are good insists that Doyoung has Mark's best interests in mind. Why else would he string him along? Why would he shoulder the danger from earlier and send Mark off to the safest place he could be? Unless it was a ploy to get Mark here, boxed in and ripe for the catch.

No, there's no use in thinking like that. Mark takes another deep, calming breath and resigns himself to waiting. He focuses instead on imagining what a future might look like for him after all this is over, making it more and more fantastical to keep his thoughts from wandering.

Mark is just starting to consider how he's going to design his second vacation home when the door to the warehouse opens with a rusty creak. Immediately, he shrinks further behind the crates. He's suddenly very aware that he could have used his time waiting to find something passable as a weapon. Now he's left himself both cornered and unarmed. How he wishes he had his hands on that sniper rifle of Doyoung's right now, even if he has no idea how to use it.

"Just like I thought, there's no one here," a voice says. "Take a rest. There's food and ammunition in those barrels."

More things Mark should have done instead of trying to get a hold of himself. He'd curse aloud if it wouldn't be a dead giveaway to where he was hiding. Though, if this person is talking about supplies in a place that's supposed to be a Railroad safehouse, does that mean...?

Before he can finish the thought, he slips. The awkward angle Mark has been propping himself up at to get a glimpse of the speaker throws off his balance enough for him to collapse. It's not a loud sound, but it's a sound all the same.

"What was that?" a second voice asks.

"Stay here. I'll check it out."

Which is more likely to get him shot, Mark wonders? Waiting here until he's approached and potentially scaring someone armed? Or going out in the open and hoping for the best? He decides to place his bets on both Doyoung and his instincts.

"Wait, don't shoot!" Mark steps out from behind the crates, hands raised placatingly in the air.

Without the obstacles in the way, he can see who he's dealing with. There are two men in the middle of the warehouse: one tall and imposing, one shorter and openly curious. Mark's heart rises to somewhere in his throat when he focuses on the gun aimed squarely at his chest. He's not dead yet, but he very well might be in the next few moments.

"Are you Johnny?" Mark asks the taller of the two on a hunch.

The man's features don't smooth out, though he looks briefly surprised. "That depends on who's asking. What are you doing here?"

"Doyoung sent me. He was bringing me here to the safehouse, but we got separated. There were explosions in the square."

"Anyone can throw around a name, even if it's one I wasn't expecting to hear," Johnny tells him, still on guard, and Mark remembers the final part of what Doyoung told him. The exact words, what were they?

"He said to tell you...remember the eighth of November? Does that mean anything to you?"

At last, Johnny's eyes soften. He slips his gun back into its holster and gives Mark a nod, one that translates not quite as an apology but something close enough. The relief that bleeds from Mark's body escapes all at once to leave him feeling several pounds lighter.

"He's fine, Jungwoo; he's like you," Johnny says to the man behind him. Then, to Mark, "Sorry to scare you, but we have to be careful. If you're looking for the Railroad, you've found it. I'm already on my way back to headquarters with Jungwoo, so it'll be easy enough for you to tag along."

Now that it's established Mark isn't a threat, Jungwoo steps away from the supply barrels to approach him. Up close, he looks to be much nearer to Mark's age than it had first appeared. And when he smiles, Mark immediately feels more at ease. Another fleshie with that kind of calm aura has to be trustworthy.

"I'm Mark," Mark says to both of them. "I'm pretty new to all of this."

"Good to meet you, Mark," Johnny says in a much warmer voice than before. "And don't worry about it. Everyone who hops on the Railroad is new to it one way or another. You'll fit in just fine."

Now that would be a novel concept. Mark hadn't realized he missed belonging to something until his life was ripped away from him and there was nothing he wanted to go back to beyond the idea of a status quo. He'd still pick going back to that status quo in a heartbeat over the dangers he faces now. But maybe he can make the most of this new one that he's found himself a part of. He's ready.

He opens his mouth to say as much, but his stomach chooses that exact moment to let out a long growl, one that echoes in the empty space. Jungwoo dissolves into a high-pitched peal of laughter, and even Johnny can't help but crack a smile.

"I read that loud and clear," he says. "First things first: let's get you some food."

Mark is never going to live this down.

⚖

Yuta's "walk", as Doyoung expected, is more than a brief stop at the edge of the village. Instead, it's a trek to the ruins of what must be an abandoned satellite yard a short hike away from the city. No matter who had controlled the area before, its previous tenants are long gone. The satellite towers themselves have all either collapsed from crumbling supports or are hanging on by a few last stubborn cables, little more than bones and the memory of walls. The large tower Yuta leads him and the other rebels to in the center of the ruins is the last one still standing true.

Normally, Doyoung would ask if the rebels were worried about retaliation from the city and its allied settlements. They're not that far from either, considering, and it's obvious that Yuta has managed to be at least a nuisance to them. But Doyoung has seen some of the traps on the way ━ the visible ones, at least ━ and previously heard the rumors the rebels had spread about the area. He can say with reasonable confidence that they don't need to worry much at all.

As they enter the tower and draw closer to the inner section of the hideout, a few of the other rebels stand much further inside Doyoung's personal space. The positioning is a rather obvious reminder that he's being escorted only while he stays in Yuta's good graces. Doyoung glares at them with such ferocity that they immediately give him a wider berth.

Some of the others break off to return to whatever they were doing before today’s attack. By the Yuta makes it to his destination, it's only him, Doyoung, and one other rebel stopping outside a half-open door. "Doyoung, come with me," Yuta tells him. When the other woman takes a step forward, he adds, "Alone."

"Are you sure?" she asks him. There's no doubt there, Doyoung notes, but there is concern. His opinions on the rebels' actions aside, they clearly have a genuine affinity for their leader.

"I'll be fine. Don't wait up."

They step inside, and the door closes behind them. The room isn't quite livable, isn't quite set up for meetings or any planning of the sort. Who is Doyoung to say? Maybe all rebel hideouts have a designated room where they take their not-quite-prisoners to talk.

He does notice that Yuta visibly relaxes a few notches once they're alone. "You clearly underestimate me if you think I'm no threat to you," he says with a touch of bruised pride. "Especially without any backup."

"It's not that I don't think you're dangerous," Yuta tells him nonchalantly. "If you walk out of this room without me, even if you take a few more of my people down with you, you won't make it to the exit without being killed."

Silence stands firm between them after the exchange. They both take a moment to size each other up, only breaking eye contact when they've read all they could from the other's guarded stance. And then with the mutual threats out of the way, Doyoung finally relaxes as much as he's able into the single available chair. "It's been a while."

"That it has." Yuta, too, has leaned back against a shelf, no longer forcing himself to look as intimidating. To his credit, he still has the same air about him that Doyoung had noticed in the village square. He carries himself like a man who's taken drastic measures and isn't afraid to take several more should the necessity arise. Doyoung can see why he's inspired others to fight at his side.

"Is this what you've been up to?" Doyoung asks him. "Calling in raids on Eluse-controlled settlements and getting under their skin?"

"Part of it. Have to make them hurt for the pain they've inflicted on everyone else. Have to keep them on their toes while we work on bigger and better things. But I'm sure you already guessed that attacks like the one today are a means to an end." He doesn't elaborate any further on what that end may be. "And you?"

"I've been tracking down the list of names behind the Incident," Doyoung readily shares. He sees Yuta's eyes darken with understanding. "Many of them were still with the group, but a few that went solo have been harder to find. As of a few days ago, all but one of them are dead. The only man left is the one who pulled the trigger."

An omission in the blood on Doyoung's hands that will drive him mad if he doesn't remind himself to stay patient. This monster's time will come. He'll make sure of it.

But enough of the past. "Why am I here?"

"Easy," Yuta admits. "I saw an opportunity."

"So you aren't just throwing me off the top of the tower as a symbolic destruction of the past?" Doyoung asks flatly, and Yuta almost has the hint of a smile.

"Tempting, but not quite. I was banking on having something that you'd want, and now I know that's the case. See, I didn't bother with a list of names. I only focused on finding the worst of them all, the one I most wanted to know. And it just so happens that my single name is the only one you're missing."

"But you're not just giving it to me." Doyoung reads between the lines, trying not to let his frustration show.

"A favor for a favor. I don't trust anyone else to do what I'm about to ask you, and it's better that I don't do it myself. Help me out this one time, and you have my word that I'll give you a name and a location."

"And if you know both of those things already, is there a reason you haven't killed him yourself?"

"Time has given the two of us different perspectives on priorities," Yuta says with a shrug. Doyoung readies a protest until he realizes Yuta hadn't meant it as an insult, who quickly adds, "Don't get me wrong. I want the bastard dead, too. My resources are just best directed other places."

Doyoung still can't say he's happy with having to jump through hoops when the information he needs is within reaching distance, but he's in no position to negotiate. And this bridge isn't one he's keen to burn. Yuta looks about as surprised as Doyoung himself is when he agrees to the deal, which is to say not at all.

"Just like old times, huh?" Doyoung says, gesturing between the two of them, and Yuta lets out a short bark of laughter that’s far from agreement.

No, certainly not. But if this means Doyoung's search is over and he has someone else who he can almost call an ally, at least their tenuous partnership is a step forward.

⚖

Mark's arrival at the Railroad's headquarters with Johnny and Jungwoo isn't the most glamorous. They take several underground sewage pipes in a path that's as winding as it is fragrant, making Mark crinkle his nose on more than one occasion when the smell grows too overwhelming. Their route diverges from the pipes to a mechanism similar to that of a large vault door, which only opens after Johnny inputs a series of numbers and spins the attached dial in the sequence needed to unseal the latch.

While the inside of the headquarters is nothing to write home about, the generally improved smell and lack of sewage come as welcome relief. Faded bricks line the walls and arched rafters where this space had clearly been blasted out for expansion. A few smaller pipes run along the ceiling above makeshift shelves and mismatched furniture that's clearly been scavenged from various sources. Down the hallways that branch off of the main room, Mark is sure there's even more to the headquarters than meets the eye. If he was skeptical before, now he knows that at least some of what he’s been told is true: the Railroad exists as more than a name.

Johnny disappears down one of those hallways after telling the two of them to stay put for a few minutes more. He's joined by a second man when he returns, one with large eyes and sharp features that almost make him look unreal. If not for the clear lack of metal on his body, Mark would have thought everything about him was synthetic in nature.

"Welcome to the Railroad," the man greets Mark and Jungwoo with a small smile. "I'm Taeyong, co-founder and overseer of all our operations. It’s good to see that Johnny got you both here safely. You're in good hands." He gestures to the hallway opposite from where he'd appeared. "Our empty rooms are down that way. Some of our other runners just moved a lot of the fleshies out who were staying with us, so you can both have beds to yourselves. We'll get you to your next stop in no time."

His speech finished, Taeyong gives them a last nod before stepping away. One look at Jungwoo's face tells Mark that the other man is sold hook, line, and sinker on the Railroad leader's promise of safety. Maybe Mark should be, too. But despite Taeyong's demeanor, despite this looking like Mark's best option, he isn't entirely convinced that the Railroad is as competent as they appear. Or that all of these people can be trusted. Instead of heading toward the empty rooms, Mark chases after Taeyong's retreating form. "Wait," he calls before the man can go any further. "I have a few questions."

Johnny, who'd been at Taeyong's heels, looks at Taeyong with a silent question in his eyes, but Taeyong shakes his head in answer. "It's no problem. I'll meet you there." To Mark, he asks, "What is it?"

It's strange, almost, how Taeyong's personality has already shifted. Where he had been confident and open during his earlier speech, he seems far more distant talking one-on-one. How much of that welcome speech had been a rehearsed act of false confidence? The contrast only adds fuel to Mark's unease.

"Why have I never heard of the Railroad before?" he asks. "How long have you been doing this? And what guarantee can you give me that I'm safe here?"

A frown grows on Taeyong's face before he visibly gets it under control. "If you never needed our help before now, you’d have no need to listen for rumors. Johnny and I have been getting other fleshies to safety for years now. We know the risks and the dangers. We know what places to avoid and what places are safe enough to travel through. And we'll do everything in our power to get you somewhere that’s truly safe."

"Then why bring us to your headquarters first if it's not truly safe _here_?" Mark questions. "Wouldn't you increase your chances of getting discovered every time another one of us comes back?"

"That's not...we have a system to follow," Taeyong insists, clearly shutting down the conversation even if he's still trying to be polite. "This system has worked for us so far. All we ask is that you trust us enough to follow along."

Trust. Mark shakes his head, balking at that word as he walks away from the exchange still feeling unsatisfied. He's had one too many bad experiences with trust lately to take someone at their word when they haven't yet proven to be worthy of his trust. Doyoung had said he trusted Taeyong, but it's clear they haven't spoken in some time. Did Doyoung only trust the Taeyong he knew? What if that Taeyong is a different person than the one Mark is looking at now?

There's something here that doesn't sit right in Mark's gut. He can only hope that he hasn't traded one danger for another.


	2. Chapter 2

One of Taeil's least favorite feelings is that of being watched. The dangers that come with being a flesh doctor have made him more cautious over the years, not to mention his ties with the Railroad. He doesn't mind having to tread a little more carefully if it means he can do something he considers productive and helpful. But the feeling of active scrutiny, of having to overanalyze his every movement for fear of giving something away, is one he’d gladly opt to never feel again.

This time, it's more than a feeling. Though the prickling sensation on the back of his neck precedes anything else, the hint of a shadow out one of the shop's side windows is what tells Taeil that his gut sensed the truth. He  _ is _ being watched. And he would put money on being able to guess by whom.

"Donghyuck," he says to his apprentice, "we're short on copper screws and polish. Can you make a quick run to the market while you have a break?"

The question, much like most indirect orders he gives to Donghyuck, isn't really a question. And Donghyuck, much like he approaches must things, audibly complains but still makes a move to slip on his jacket and head out the door. That mutual understanding has kept them going for this long and hopefully will for many seasons more.

Not two minutes pass after Donghyuck leaves before the bell over the door chimes again to signal a visitor. Taeil looks up only out of habit; he's already certain who it was lurking around the building.

"Yuta," he says in greeting. The other man is covered in patches of dark soot, which Taeil honestly can't judge if he's left there on purpose or not. "I overheard someone talking about an attack on one of the capital's villages today, high casualties. Kind of a coincidence after our last conversation, don't you think?"

Yuta raises an eyebrow, countering, "I like our arrangement because you never ask me too many questions."

Of course. Taeil sighs in place of an answer, heading to the back of the shop and knowing Yuta will follow. The small cabinet on the wall unlocks with the twist of a key from Taeil's pocket, swinging open to reveal a row of recently-manufactured immunity shots. Each syringe is protected by a plastic cap to keep the pinkish liquid safely inside. Taeil had gone through three different design iterations before settling on one that would withstand all the jostling it sometimes had to go through before use.

"These should last you through the end of the month, assuming you don't need more replacements and the process doesn't accelerate," Taeil advises. "Twice a week in the evenings, just like the last few batches."

Yuta's case isn't an unusual one, but it's one of the more extreme he's seen. Metal replacements (or "enhancements", he supposes) were always seen as a way to extend life and save one from suffering. But if someone replaces enough of their original biology with material that was never supposed to be there in the first place, that metal starts to poison the bloodstream and threaten the life it was meant to save. Both Taeil and Yuta are aware that a cure is impossible. But slowing time? That’s a theoretical which Taeil has worked to make into reality.

"One more thing," Taeil adds as he hands over the syringes. "There's been an increase in raids on flesh doctors the past few weeks. More people are getting desperate enough to find fleshies any way they can. I'd like some more of your men to keep an eye on things later into the evenings."

"I can do that. They'll start tonight."

Taeil may not often agree with Yuta’s principles, but the other man has never been less than fair to him. There’s one less weight on his shoulders now that he doesn't have to worry about Donghyuck tending to the garden at dusk. Taeil's "Be careful out there" is genuine when Yuta leaves.

He’s probably seeing things, but he thinks that Yuta gives him something that almost looks like a smile.

⚖

To Yuta's credit, he hadn't let Doyoung go on this mission unprepared. Doyoung had been skeptical at first of the armored vest and bag he'd been given before he left, packed full to the brim with a grapple hook, climbing equipment, and a breathable half-mask to cover most of his face. The mask, of course, had been an obvious thing to put on. But he's finding that he appreciates what he mistakenly considered overpreparation after he comes face to face with his targets.

The last time he was this close to Eluse was a while ago. If Doyoung was uncomfortable being in one of the nearby villages, he now feels every part of himself on edge as he sneaks around the edges of the city walls. Nightfall at least makes it easier for him to blend in to the many shadows thrown by buildings inhabited and otherwise. Aside from the brief moment he passes by the outer gate and is barely met with a second glance, he manages to stay out of sight. Doyoung is no fool. He knows that the difficult part would be actually making it inside. Luckily for him, he doesn't need to go that far.

Yuta had given him just enough details for Doyoung to be able to pull off the job. He needs to plant a handful of devices the rebels had developed near the top of a key control tower, which he assumes would provide access to said controls if one was within its vicinity. Because the devices' ranges are spherical, he can plant them high on the attached wall ━ either from within the city or after scaling the outer side. The latter option is the only one that won't end with him dead. If he's careful.

On some level, Doyoung is aware that this will have consequences. He'd be naïve to think that giving this control to Yuta won't lead to violence and death. But he also finds that he doesn't care if that blood is on his hands by association. Doyoung has been happy up until now not to take a side on such conflicts. And he can't exactly muster up too much sympathy for the city's inhabitants, considering their lifestyles and how they've treated everyone else they deem unfit to live behind their walls.

A short way before the wall, what little foliage and building cover there still is gives way to tall, browning grass and nothing else. Doyoung doesn't think twice before dropping down to his elbows and knees, shuffling forward as silently as he can and pausing every so often to make sure he doesn't hear approaching footsteps. The sound of equipment jostling in his pack still disturbs the silence, but otherwise his hunting skills come in handy. He's about as quiet as humanly possible.

At the wall's base, that equipment finally comes in handy. Doyoung sends the grappling hook shooting up near the top with a faint whistling noise and quickly works to secure the dangling cord to the harness he clips to the bottom of his vest. This was the part of the plan he was least looking forward to. On the ground, he was good at finding cover. On the wall, he'll be an open target. He'll just have to count on no one suspecting a person would be foolhardy enough to climb.

Climbing takes some adjusting, but Doyoung manages to get into the rhythm of retracting the cord and finding solid purchase against the stone. By the time he's halfway up, he's comfortable enough with the movements to practically leap a few feet with each jump, still landing with his hands and feet flat against the wall. When the cord runs out, Doyoung deems that he's high up enough to plant the devices. He pulls the pocket-sized silver circles out from his pack, very purposefully not looking down, and presses a trio of them against the stone until they engage and burrow in. Other than a faint blue light that's visible only from a few inches away, they blend into the stone just as seamlessly as Doyoung had into the shadows.

A faint hiss emanates from his harness as Doyoung slowly lets himself down. He admittedly holds his breath until his feet are back on solid ground, where he finally feels less like he has a target sitting on his back. He disengages the grappling hook and collects where the hooked end had fallen back to earth. And then he feels the telltale press of a gun against the base of his skull.

"Don't move," a gruff voice says from behind him.

_ Shit. _

__

Yuta had told him not to leave bodies. Bodies mean a trail to follow, which means people sticking their noses where they're not supposed to and finding the devices Doyoung had risked his life planting. Yuta didn't, however, say anything about keeping it non-lethal.

Doyoung slowly puts his hands up in the air. He waits for the slightest shift in the weapon pointed at his head, signaling the peacekeeper has just started to let down his guard, before he strikes. He jumps up, letting his now near-empty pack hit against the gun, and spins around to yank it from the man's hands before he can line up for a shot. Part of Doyoung itches to pull the trigger. In a way, it would be easier. But it would also be louder. Instead, he kicks out his leg in a wide arc and drops the man to his knees, then maneuvers him so that his neck is trapped between Doyoung's chest and the cold metal of the gun pressing into his Adam’s apple.

The man gasps out a defiant string of swears. His hands grasp uselessly at his neck to unsuccessfully pry Doyoung's fingers off of the weapon. He shudders and goes still.

When silence returns, Doyoung throws the weapon into his pack, finishes unfastening his harness, and braces the man's body over his shoulders. Since this isn't his first time, he already has several ideas for where he can stash it and never have it be found before the remains are unidentifiable. After all the wall-climbing and army-crawling tonight, getting this part of the job done and getting back to Yuta will be a walk in the park in comparison.

The man's limp arm flops out of its hold once, startling Doyoung with the contact, and he grimaces in distaste. When exactly did hiding bodies become a common occurrence for him?

⚖

"I still don't like this."

"So you keep saying," Jungwoo says on the thin edge of his patience. "Pretty sure even the spiders know by now that you don't."

Mark sighs, letting himself slump back against the headboard. He knows he's probably getting insufferable airing out his suspicions, but who else is he supposed to talk to? Johnny?  _ Taeyong _ ? Jungwoo should have known what he was signing up for when he elected to share one of the two-person rooms with Mark rather than take his own (though Mark will admit that was also due to both of them getting antsy at the thought of being alone and vulnerable).

The energy today at the Railroad headquarters is strange. It's been that way ever since this morning (afternoon? It was hard to tell anymore being underground) when one of the other runners returned barely standing on her own two feet. Mark and Jungwoo had come out to see what was going on, curious when they heard the agent's clear distress, but Johnny had quickly shooed them away. Since then, the entire bunker has been more quiet than usual, the opposite of Mark's stewing thoughts.

"Let's change things up," Jungwoo tries. "Where do you think our final destination is? What do you think it'll be like?"

Mark really can't help himself when he answers, "It could be a labor camp, an auction block, or a straight-up deathtrap for all we know. Doesn't it rub you the wrong way that they won't tell any of the fleshies where we're going?"

"It makes sense to me. If any of us get captured or go rogue, they don't want us sharing the location."

Mark knew Jungwoo was more optimistic with their current situation than he was, but this seems like a whole new level of naivety. "You're way too trusting," he scoffs with a shake of his head.

Jungwoo's eyes narrow at the words. "Not in the slightest," he says without his usual warmth. "You don't survive this long by being overly-trusting. But I know when it's convenient to go along with the right people, and the Railroad has given me more reasons to trust them than to not. Plus, if I didn't trust someone...the most foolish thing to do would be letting them know."

Even without Jungwoo spelling it out entirely, Mark sees the critique for what it is. He'd all but announced directly to Taeyong's face that he didn't trust his entire organization. It hadn't been one of his proudest moments. The sentiment behind his actions is still true, but the approach left some things to be desired.

"I'll give you one thing," Mark concedes. "Johnny and Taeyong are both fleshies, so it makes sense they're on our side. Other than pointing a gun at me when we first met, Johnny seems like a decent person. Taeyong...even if it makes me sound paranoid, something about him bothers me."

"If you feel that strongly about it, why don't you go talk to him? Don't accuse him, I mean. Just talk. Maybe he'll surprise you."

Mark honestly can't tell if Jungwoo's suggestion is a genuine endorsement of the idea or just a way to make Mark finally shut up if he refuses. Either way, it does get the wheels in his head turning. At this point, he's already shown his hand and made his feelings perfectly clear. He might as well try to either confirm his suspicions directly or put them to rest for good.

"You know what?" Mark tells him. "I think I will."

Jungwoo's smile and thumbs-up this time most definitely has undertones of being glad to get Mark out of the room. Mark decides to let it go, because halfway through his latest round of complaints he'd even started to annoy himself. He leaves his roommate alone and wanders back through the stone-lined corridors in the general direction of where he knows Taeyong's quarters must be, based on where he always disappears to and the limited number of connecting hallways that had been previously blasted out.

As Mark draws closer, he hears voices. He thinks it must be the other runner still checking in until he realizes that he passed the infirmary already on his way here ━ and both of these voices are ones he's familiar with. Instinct first tells Mark to come back later, because he doesn't want to interrupt when it's none of his business. Then he realizes that listening in when Johnny and Taeyong don't know he's there is the perfect opportunity to find out the truth. So instead, Mark continues onward.

"━almost got her killed on my orders," he hears Taeyong say, voice sounding oddly strangled. "And the girl that was with her... _ fuck _ ."

"Calm down." That's Johnny's voice now, much steadier and more put-together. "You're hyperventilating, okay? Breathe. She's going to be fine. And even if we couldn't save the girl, we at least gave her a fighting chance. A better one than she had if we hadn't stepped in."

"But if I had gotten better intel, if I had known about the━ the new security, I...I━"

Taeyong breaks off with an awful sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob, choking on air immediately after. Focusing so hard on inching forward without giving himself away, Mark barely hears Johnny's attempts to comfort the Railroad leader, his coaxing to stop spiraling and  _ please, Taeyong, breathe _ . What had Taeyong done? What happened with the fleshie girl? Their conversation is getting so soft, Mark will need to get closer to make anything out.

Just as he'd suspected from how clearly he could hear the earlier part of their exchange, Mark discovers that the door to Taeyong's quarters isn't closed. Though the opening is hardly a crack, it's more than enough for him to peek through and get a glimpse of the two men inside. He sees Taeyong curled into himself in the middle of the floor, Johnny gently rocking him back and forth in a surprisingly intimate hold that makes Mark think he'd misread their relationship as something more platonic than it really is. He sees a swath of maps and diagrams plastered to the walls above meticulously organized shelves. And he sees where Taeyong has cast off a skin-toned casing in the midst of his breakdown, revealing the metal limb from his knee down for what it really is.

Mark can't help the audible gasp he makes in his surprise. Both Taeyong and Johnny's heads snap up to face him, Taeyong's red-ringed eyes going wide while Johnny's narrow to slits. "Johnny━" Taeyong starts, sounding panicked, and Mark turns to run but is too late. In a blink, Johnny is pulling Mark back from the doorway and swiveling them so that he blocks the exit, feet squared and hands out ready to stop him from running again. Mark's heart sinks. He's trapped.

For a moment, Taeyong stays facing the wall as he discreetly wipes a sleeve across his face. Then he's back on his feet and turning toward both of them with a more composed expression and a "Mark, let me explain━"

"Well that would be rich, wouldn't it?" Mark all but yells. "You won't tell us where we're going, or even any of the stops along the way. Now I find out you're lying about being a fleshie. And I still don't have any proof that you're actually helping anyone, either because you don't want us to be safe or you have no idea what you're doing!"

Taeyong takes the accusations in silence. He waits a few moments after Mark is finished, making sure the biting words are really at an end, before saying much more calmly than he'd been a minute ago, "You're misunderstanding. It's true that I pretend to be one of you to seem more trustworthy. Fleshies are skittish enough that another fleshie is sometimes the only person they'd trust. As for your destination...the Railroad is purposefully set up for each person besides Johnny and myself to only know the next safehouse they're meant to send fleshies to, or else the entire operation could be put at risk. We truly do have your best interests at heart."

"And how am I supposed to believe you now?" Mark demands.

Taeyong does look pained for a moment. "You don't have to like me," he says firmly. "You don't have to believe in my rules or my methods. All you need to know is that I'm going to get you and as many fleshies as I can to safety."

How is Mark meant to be satisfied with that answer? Blind faith like that is something a person had to earn, and Taeyong had done just about the polar opposite. Mark angrily turns to storm past Johnny. The other man holds out a hand to stop him until Taeyong gives him a defeated "Let him go," after which he steps aside. That makes the walk back to his room feel even less like a victory.

Mark ignores a curious-looking Jungwoo still perched where he'd left him and opts to bury underneath the covers of his own bed. He resigns himself to riding out the storm of conflicting emotions inside his chest.

⚖

Doyoung's return to the derelict satellite yard is a much more pleasant experience than his first. The absent feelings of unease aside, he much prefers when he's given some room to breathe instead of being hounded by overprotective rebels. He's not entirely sure if the lack of an escort is because he scares them or because Yuta gave them explicit instructions to leave him alone. Possibly both.

He does stop briefly to ask one rebel about Yuta's whereabouts, who points him in the direction of the war room after some coaxing. From there, Doyoung wastes no time on taking in the architecture of the tower or meandering through its halls. He's still on a mission. The information he's been seeking for months on end could finally be in his grasp. Nothing matters more than getting back to Yuta and getting his hands on that location.

Yuta isn't alone in the war room. He's clearly in the middle of discussing strategies with a few other rebels, but he quickly dismisses them along with the few sheets of printed diagrams when Doyoung steps inside. Yet again, the two of them find themselves alone.

"Don't want to let me know about your plan, do you?" Doyoung can't help but ask.

"I don't give my plans out to anyone who only has one foot in the water." Yuta folds one piece of paper that had been left behind, creasing it twice before slipping it in his back pocket. "How did it go?"

"The devices are planted right by the east tower like you asked. One peacekeeper gave me trouble, but they won’t find the body even if they realize he's missing. I made sure of it."

Yuta looks genuinely impressed. "Nice work. Controlling the tower will be essential as we get closer to our goal. But I know the real reason you showed up here again..."

From his other pocket, Yuta withdraws a different slip of paper, one that Doyoung unfolds to see a name and an address scribbled across in black ink.  _ Caius Markell _ . Doyoung feels anger and adrenaline pumping through his veins in equal measure. After all this time, after all this searching...this is it. This is the end.

"I hope you make that bastard scream," Yuta tells him with a wicked smile. The fire in his eyes has gone from a consistent blaze to a sea of dancing sparks, dangerous and wild. And something about the unexpected combination, of Doyoung finally getting what he's wanted for so long and Yuta being fully behind him with no questions asked, slides a lock sideways in Doyoung's chest.

"What would it mean," he finds himself asking, "if I  _ did _ have both feet in the water?"

Yuta's expression sharpens. His split attention from before focuses solely on the man in front of him, piercing and absolute when he steps closer into Doyoung's personal space to look into his eyes. For a long moment, he's silent.

"Just so we're clear," he says, "I'm going to raze Eluse to the ground, and everyone inside along with it." He still doesn't step back. "No taking prisoners, no trying to sort the guilty out from those who claim they haven't been involved. It's all going to burn. And if someone tries to get in the way, they’ll burn just the same."

"And what would you need from me?"

"Your skills, first of all. I knew you were good, Doyoung, but doing this favor for me proved that you're just what the rebellion could use. And I also need your loyalty, no questions asked."

Doyoung shakes his head. "I can't promise no questions. You should know me better than that."

"Maybe I did, once," Yuta muses. "But you've changed. The person standing in front of me now is a lot different than the man I used to know. And I like what I see."

Despite the circumstances and their dynamic both being new, Doyoung understands Yuta well enough to know he's not reading into those words the wrong way. They'd been perfectly intentional, innuendos and all. He'll be the first to admit that he himself has changed. Yuta has, too, which had been the first thing Doyoung noticed about him during their reunion. He's darker and angrier than compared to Doyoung’s memories...but Doyoung also understands him better than he thought he did. And he'd be lying if he said he wasn't drawn to him.

For so long, Doyoung has kept himself from picking sides. He had no personal stakes in the conflict, and he'd been content not to define his views or his actions by any group in particular. But Yuta isn't asking him to believe in the cause, exactly. He's asking Doyoung to believe in him. And with the end of his personal vendetta in sight, maybe Doyoung needs something to believe in again. Yuta isn't a half-bad choice.

"I can't make any promises for the long run," Doyoung warns, directed at every implication of Yuta’s words. "But I'm serious about the immediate future. As soon as I put a bullet through this man's head."

The irony is that there's no concern anymore about ruining a friendship, because all these years and distance between them means they can't exactly call themselves friends anymore. It's something different now, something new. The adrenaline in Doyoung's veins doesn't curb its intensity.

Yuta gives him a look that’s less angry than before but no less wicked. He leans in dangerously close, pausing only when Doyoung's breath hitches to pull back entirely.

"Well, then," Yuta tells him, "I look forward to working with you."

Doyoung leaves the room with his heart beating a few pulses too fast to be normal.

⚖

Johnny won't lie: he still loves his job, still loves how he's able to help, but the past few days have thrown him off his game. Between the loss of the fleshie who'd never made it back to headquarters and Mark's vocal suspicion turned full-blown confrontation, he's finding it hard to get back in the swing of escorting both Mark and Jungwoo to the next safehouse. And that's not even to mention bearing the emotional weight of Taeyong's breakdown. Such nights weren't exactly uncommon when the other man cared _so_ _much_ , but it's an extra layer of stress trying to hold it together for someone else's sake as well as Johnny's own.

The next safehouse after headquarters isn't always the same destination. Johnny has a handful of different locations the Railroad has deemed safe, alternating between them each time he leads a run to make their movements harder to track. He's under orders not to give the two fleshies any further clues about the rest of their journey, but he hopes they make it without a hitch. Once they make it to Harbor, he has complete faith in them being able to live out the rest of their lives to the fullest.

"What exactly is this place like where we're heading?" Jungwoo asks him. "The final place, I mean. I know you can't tell us about the safehouses."

"I've only been there once, the first time Taeyong and I discovered it. I'm sure the locals have made plenty of changes since then, but I know it's still beautiful, still sheltered, and still a great place for either a permanent home or a next stepping stone."

"So that wasn't just lip service, telling us we had a choice?"

Johnny quickly shakes his head. "Not at all. Harbor will support whatever you want to do next: you can stay and live with the community of fleshies there, relocate after some more self-defense training and disguises, or even help the Railroad."

He does admittedly glance at Mark when mentioning their options, but finds that the other fleshie is resolutely avoiding eye contact. He's obviously still furious over Taeyong's deception, the Railroad leader's reasoning aside. Johnny...can understand him, in a way. As a fleshie himself, he understands the sting of broken trust.

Being part of the Railroad, he's dealt with fleshies all along the emotional spectrum. He's met those who were openly curious like Jungwoo, those who were almost too frightened to leave headquarters, those who never said a word. But an anger like this is much rarer, and now Johnny finds himself at a loss. Though he tries to engage Mark in conversation a few times, he backs off when it's clear Mark isn't in the mood for talking. Or Johnny in general, probably. Guilt by association.

The next time they stop isn't at the actual safehouse. While technically a building, this place is more akin to the warehouse that Johnny had stopped in with Jungwoo before getting back to headquarters, the place he’d unexpectedly picked up Mark: a temporary stop that the Railroad kept stocked with essentials. They duck inside and waste no time in opening up a few cans of rations. Mark in particular digs into whatever combination of beans and vegetables is available to him, his stomach clearly not having shrunk from consistent meals to survival mode. The enthusiasm is admittedly endearing.

Johnny starts to grab a quick bite himself, and almost thinks his can of mystery mush has gone bad before he realizes the strange feeling spreading through his system isn't indigestion. It's suspicion. Something feels off, though he can't pin down exactly what that feeling stems from. Considering the Railroad's recent run of bad luck, he's not about to let his hunch pass by unnoticed. He does a scan of the building's interior under the guise of stretching his legs and taking inventory, careful not to let the other fleshies catch on that something might be amiss.

The hidden stash of food is stocked as expected. The mattresses leaning against the back wall are still all accounted for. There's not enough dust or dirt around for Johnny to tell if other sets of footprints have tracked across the floor, and even if that were the case, he wouldn't be able to tell if they were from other fleshies who stumbled across the supplies. Is that all his feeling of unease might be coming from? A different desperate fleshie who stopped by and changed something noticeable enough to set off Johnny's internal alarms? That could explain━

No, it wouldn't explain the camera. Nausea flares in Johnny's gut as he changes angles and catches the slight flicker of red on one of the upper walls. Whoever set it up had been careful, masking any traces of the camera except from very specific angles while still giving it full view of the front entrance. And whatever their allegiance, whatever their motivation...this operation has been compromised.

Are they watching now, he wonders? Even if the person behind the camera is a run-of-the-mill skinjacker, they surely have some kind of system set up to trip an alarm when there’s movement in the camera's view. The moment Johnny walked in with his charges, that alarm would have triggered. Mark and Jungwoo are no fighters. Johnny wouldn't consider himself a violent person, but in circumstances like these...he's willing to do what's necessary.

"Jungwoo, Mark," he calls toward the front of the warehouse, "help me inventory the weapon stash here, will you? I need to get these numbers back to Taeyong after I drop you off."

"Why can't you just radio him or something?" Mark asks. He seems to regret it a second later, realizing he's broken his streak of being silent and pretending that Johnny isn't there.

"No radios in the field. There's always a chance of us being tracked."

Johnny resists the urge to bounce his leg or worry his lip between his teeth as he feels the seconds tick by. He won't give them the impression that something's wrong. Not yet. He knows them and their situation well enough to realize that they'll want to help, and depending on how real this threat is, he won't have their deaths on his hands. It would cut him to the core. It would  _ ruin _ Taeyong to have two failed runs in a row.

At last, Jungwoo elbows Mark in the side and says, "We're coming." Mark rolls his eyes but doesn't disagree. Johnny waits until they pass his spot before taking long strides in the direction they'd come from, already making sure the gun on his hip is in reachable distance. Just a few seconds more and━

"Johnny? There's only two pistols in here and a...Johnny?"

Jungwoo sounds genuinely confused and more than a touch wary. It doesn't feel good, having to step on the trust of the one person here who still had some of it remaining. "I'll be right back, you two," Johnny says quickly. He slips outside and seals the sounds of protest behind the warehouse door. One twist of his key ensures that they won't be getting out this way. Hopefully by the time they figure out they can use the back door, this situation will already be resolved.

The area around him is quiet, Johnny notes. So quiet, that he's able to hear the slight retort of a weapon being fired, the faintest whistle of a dart cutting through the air before it blooms on the side of his neck just above his collarbone. How ironic, he thinks as his legs give out, that after all the gunfire, explosions, and assorted ammo he's dodged, what finally does him in will be poison from a dart smaller than his pinky finger.

Johnny falls to the ground with no control of his limbs, landing painfully on his stomach and feeling all of the air punched from his lungs. Vision swimming, he has a vague impression of sets of boots and distorted voices before consciousness escapes him. He hopes that if this really is the end, they'll make it quick. He hopes Mark and Jungwoo have figured out right about now that there's another door. He hopes they'll have sense enough to turn tail and run.

And most of all, he hopes that Taeyong can find it in his heart to forgive him.

⚖

Taeil arrives early at the shop that morning. Earlier than usual, he might add. He's always been one for punctuality. But today's early start isn't about dramatically rearranging the furniture, starting a thorough spring cleaning, or even about opening. Quite the opposite, in fact.

For the moment, Taeil keeps the curtains drawn, so that only the faintest beams of sunlight permeate spaces between the fabric and fall across the interior walls. He runs a finger along the pocketed wooden surface of the counter, hand dipping down to feel under the lip where Donghyuck had not-so-sneakily carved his initials during his second week of apprenticeship. He adjusts the line of various screwdrivers, pliers, and miscellaneous tools so that they run in two perfectly parallel lines above the drawers of assorted screws and bolts. He stands in the middle of the floor and keeps his eyes wide open as he thinks back to the first time he'd stepped through the doors and gotten to call this place his.

From that moment on, Taeil had never let the shop be without his care for more than the occasional market run or a single day close-up. Why would he, when this had been his dream? He'd known ever since the first time he saw a woman finally able to walk again that he wanted to be a flesh doctor, wanted to do everything in his power to fix what was broken and restore what had once been lost. That goal still hasn't changed. But other things will, even if that change may not be permanent.

"Taeil. Boss."

There's no need to have the bell above the front door go off whenever Donghyuck arrives. By the time he has one foot through the door, he's already at full energy and armed with enough chatter to either fill an entire day with back-and-forth banter or drive an unwanted loiterer mad.

"I don't know if you noticed," Donghyuck continues as he throws the blinds open, "but it's a beautiful morning. The perfect amount of sun, just the right level of white noise, a slight breeze to blow the nonexistent trees." He turns around with his hands on his hips. "The perfect morning to  _ sleep in _ . So why did you call me in early? And why are you here even earlier? It's inhuman!"

Taeil cracks a smile at the long-winded complaint, though he finds it faltering just as quickly as it had appeared. "Have a seat, Donghyuck," he says, which is always code for "It's time to be serious."

Donghyuck hears the unspoken words loud and clear. He props himself up on the edge of his favorite table and keeps his mouth shut as Taeil starts to pace, a habit he still hasn't been able to shake even after Donghyuck has called him out for it on multiple occasions.

"I'm going to be away for a while," Taeil breaks the news. "While I'm gone, I'm handing the shop over to you for the foreseeable future."

Donghyuck's eyes are wide. "But..."

"You've got what it takes after all your training and all the hard work you've put into learning. Consider this the final test of your apprenticeship. I have full confidence you can fill in for me in the interim. The shop will be in good hands."

"How long?" Donghyuck asks, uncharacteristically quiet.

"I'm still not sure."

"And you won't tell me where you're going?"

Taeil's heart sinks at the muted acceptance already running through Donghyuck's words. "It's for the best that way. But I promise that I should be safe, and that I'll be back as soon as I can."

He's not sure what to expect. A few light-hearted complaints, maybe, or yelling if he's unlucky and it doesn't go over well. The last thing Taeil anticipates is for Donghyuck to leave his usual perch and wrap his arms securely around Taeil's torso in a relatively rare show of affection. Even rarer still is the lack of a self-deprecating jab to lighten the mood. It's just a hug. Taeil feels his own expression waver dangerously, though he has it back under control by the time Donghyuck steps back.

Fortunately, Taeil's few things he needs to take with him are already packed. He already knew he didn't want to linger too long after revealing his leave of absence, wanted to give Donghyuck space while he came to terms with his new situation. Taeil is also aware, logically, that Yuta promised him extra security, even more so now that Donghyuck will be in the shop alone. There are few safer places his apprentice could be.

And still, for all the nostalgia it fills him with, the shop itself isn't the last thing Taeil spares a look for as he leaves. Because in the end, his true pride and joy that's come from a life of doing what he loves isn't a place at all. It's a person.

⚖

Once, when the world was no less bleak but still a fundamentally different place, Yuta, Doyoung, Taeyong, and Jeno had been a team. Their found family had bonded over a vision of the future that, while not always in complete alignment, had one singular goal in common: things had to change. That desire for change had kept them together through thick and thin. Given time, it had always turned doubt and uncertainty back into battle cries and shared stories around a campfire. Taeyong was much less tense then, Yuta quicker to a biting joke and a smile to wash it down. Doyoung himself had a clear view of the path forward and felt like no one could lay a finger on him.

They tore down whatever parts of rotten foundation they could find, damn the consequences. They forced themselves to laugh in the face of danger. And then, finally, danger came looking for them. Rumors of a hired band of mercenaries paid to track them down quickly snowballed into a lurking sense of danger behind every corner. Their brashness became permanently laced with a new sort of caution. One day, three of them came back from a hit on Eluse’s resources just in time to see Jeno slump against a wall with a bullet buried in between his eyes.

Someone had screamed. Doyoung still can't remember who. Yuta had emptied three different clips from his rifle at the intruders' backs but felled only one. Doyoung ran with him while they gave chase, only to lose track of their targets a few minutes into running. They'd returned to the scene of the crime to find Taeyong kneeling over Jeno's unmoving form, sobbing silently into his hands. Doyoung does remember what he felt then: like there hadn't been a point to any of this, that the price they'd paid for any of the so-called good they'd done hadn't been worth it in the end.

Not two days went by before the three of them went their separate ways and hardly spoke to each other again.

Years later, Doyoung wedges his foot in the gap of a doorway that threatens to close, repeats a name that tastes vile on his tongue, and demands without a hint of warmth in his voice, "Where is he?"

The woman on the other side of the door looks terrified for a moment before she stashes the emotion away. She tries to shove the door closed one more time before she realizes Doyoung isn't budging. "Just because I'm his sister, you think I know where he is every waking moment?" she asks. "He could be anywhere for all I know."

"I won't ask again."

"And my answer won't change. I'm not telling you━"

She stops talking when the barrel of a pistol presses against her side, an extra parting gift from Yuta along with the tip for where Doyoung might find this house. She doesn't look fearful this time. At least, not any more than she did before. The venom in her eyes is so apparent that Doyoung feels she could sting him and leave him for dead on the front steps.

"You're crazy," she spits. "Someone will see."

"Maybe, maybe not. It would be inconvenient having another body to hide, but I think I'd manage. Now, a location."

"He's changed for the better! Whatever reason you want him dead, he's turned his life around. He doesn't deserve to die!"

Doyoung lets out an undignified snort. "People don't change. I know that from experience."

Rich words coming from him, Doyoung supposes. He'd said it because it sounded like something enjoyable to throw back in her face, a biting judgement against the character of the man Doyoung has killed in his mind through all manner of tools and methods. But how can he be the one to insist on that truth, when the upstanding freedom fighter he’d been years ago has fallen to  _ this _ ?

Doyoung doesn't know if he would have pulled the trigger. Luckily, he doesn't have to find out. He learns that his target has become a respected member of the clergy, spending most of his days holed up in Eluse’s main temple. It's a load of shit for a hitman who'd been the worst of them all to become a holy man, Doyoung thinks, but he's never had much trust in any of them to begin with. He leaves the house with Yuta’s pistol securely stashed away and furious eyes drilling into his retreating back.

Sneaking into the inner city is easier than Doyoung expects, despite Yuta's assurances that his instructions would get Doyoung in with minimal risk. He'd wondered back at the rebel’s hideout why Yuta was willing to risk a loophole like this one with him, but Yuta had pointed out its impracticality for the rebels as a whole: sneaking a single man in for taking out one target was a much different scenario than taking a whole army. Doyoung had to concede the point. He's certainly grateful that despite the waiting for shift changes and risky climbing, he doesn't have to start an all-out shooting match in the streets.

The temple itself is easy enough to find. Despite the inflated grandeur that pervades much of the city, it’s the one building that towers above all others. The gold finish and gaudy embellishments make it stand out arguably more than some of the government buildings, which seems like an apt comparison for what Doyoung has gathered about Eluse’s politics. Many, if not most, of the city's political resources are devoted toward maintaining order between the two feuding religious factions whose heads took up residence in this very temple: one which worshipped the geometric constellation around the North Star, one which gave spiritual qualities to the aurora that sometimes blazed in the sky. In truth, Doyoung had been fascinated by it. Not the beliefs themselves, but watching how everyone convinced themselves the distinction was important enough to nearly start riots over.

Doyoung keeps himself scarce with a bowed head and his equipment hidden underneath the folds of his robe, which he has tightly fastened at his throat. As long as he keeps up the appearance of being solemn and purposeful, no one will question his motives this close to the temple. The sentries posted at his chosen entrance actually nod respectfully at him while he passes with a different clustered group, which is almost laughable enough for Doyoung to break character.

Once inside, he quickly makes his way into the vents to move higher than security will allow him to walk on his own two feet, pulling the hood of his robe away from where it had been obstructing his vision before he moves forward on his elbows and knees. A few planned twists and turns (and future bruises) later, Doyoung kicks out a grate and scales the remainder of the building from the outside. Yet again, the blueprints Yuta had showed him from the rebels' archives hadn't led him wrong. He makes it to a high vantage point of his choosing without any wandering eyes looking his way.

Doyoung doesn’t allow his own eyes to wander too far behind him until he’s securely wedged in between two pillars, armored vest adjusted so it’s not digging into his ribs, and sure he’s not about to fall off the edge. It takes a great height to make his stomach churn the way it threatens to do now. He can see why someone who’d spent their life using their power to snuff out that of others would be tempted enough by the view to call himself a holy man. From up here, it’s easy enough to see other living souls as specks of dust in your kingdom. It’s easy to consider yourself a god.

Doyoung’s musings are halted by a flash of ornate robes on the floor two levels below. He quickly releases the mechanism on his arm and unstraps the rifle from his back to notch it in place, still following in his peripheral as two men pace in deep conversation before a pair of guards. Typical clergy work, Doyoung thinks to himself. A whole lot of talking.

His thoughts are shifting now to how he’s grateful for the temple’s open interior design, which allows him to see through the central opening several floors down from this angle. He’s hoping to catch his target on the man’s way to or from his sleeping quarters on the top floor. This is a good sign that the strategy should work.

Then the significance of the two men’s robes hits him, and Doyoung pauses in his movements with a frown. This can’t be right, can it?

He squints through the scope to see if his eyes are deceiving him from a distance, but he still finds one man in gold and red, while the other is clothed in deep purple. From what Doyoung knows of the religious sects, they were supposed to be at each other’s throats. Only the moderators who acted as liaisons here kept them from resorting to all-out warfare, which is why only one sect was allowed to move freely around the temple at a time. One glance at the sky shows the elusive Melif constellation shining bright. No purple robes should be out, much less a clearly high ranking priest talking to his so-called enemy with an air of total familiarity. His brows knit even closer together as he sees them shake hands.

Then Doyoung gets his second shock of the night when he swivels his scope to the left and takes a closer look at the guards. One looks like what Doyoung expects, yes, but the other isn’t unfamiliar at all. Those eyes that dart calculatingly between the other robed men are eyes Doyoung has seen in his nightmares, has gouged out of their sockets with screams so ugly that he’s grateful they’ve never escaped the vacuum of his own mind.

For so long, Doyoung has dreamed of this moment. He’s wanted to put a bullet straight through the one who’d pulled his trigger on a boy who’d been Doyoung’s younger brother in all but blood. And yet, he waits to take the shot. Selfish as he may be, he’s not about to prematurely start a war with the city’s prime seat of power and leave Yuta to salvage the mess. He grits his teeth and waits for an opening with no witnesses.

The stars look different from this high up. Doyoung splits his attention to include them, just to give himself something to distract his finger from the trigger. Melif looks almost hazy among the clouds. Maybe there was some truth to the mystic implications that so many placed on the constellation that drifted in and out of sight. He doesn’t know why a higher entity would choose a specific handful of stars to manifest themselves, but if there was such an entity, the display likely wasn’t for them at all. Doyoung imagines any larger than life being would view humanity much like those at the top of this temple viewed the world below: like inconsequential dust.

More movement pries Doyoung’s eyes away from the stars. He sees one robed man hold up his hand in what looks to be a signal. At first, nothing happens. Then Doyoung sees a flash from the other side of the roof, hears a series of repeated clicks, and the stars he’d been musing at flicker out of existence as if they’d never been there in the first place. Another rotation of clicks begins, ignoring Doyoung’s dropped jaw, and the pink-hued aurora that always accompanied the stars’ absence blazes to life.

This isn’t mystical at all, Doyoung realizes. The shifting night sky at the city’s heart is nothing more than a hologram. And for what? To manufacture an entire religious conflict and keep the population distracted from asking questions? To control one thought so absolutely that such control would bleed into others, into a person’s core identity? Even something as simple as robbing people blind by convincing them to willingly give up their riches for false salvation?

Doyoung finds himself deeply shaken. Whatever it is he’s found...this is big. It’s way more than he signed on for. So much effort does he need to put into controlling his shaking hands for a few crucial moments that he can hardly savor the sight of the hole opening up between his target’s eyes.

The shot is taken. The moment the priests and the guards are out of sight, Doyoung’s bullet is halfway through the air. He stays in place just long enough to make sure the man stops breathing, then takes off into the night before he can be found. And Doyoung knows that whatever happens, whatever lies and misdirections he may need to concoct, Yuta can never know what he witnessed tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

Johnny’s road back to consciousness is a long and sluggish one. He can still feel the aftereffects of whatever they’d drugged him with swim at the edges of his vision, tempting him to let his eyes drift back shut and return to a dreamless sleep. His tongue tastes sour in his mouth, and his limbs are stiff where they’re clamped to chair legs and behind his back.

Johnny takes a moment to test the metal bindings, even using his weight to try and topple the chair, but neither course of action gets him far. His kidnappers are as competent as he’d hoped they wouldn’t be. This cell they have him sealed up in looks like it’s going to be his only scenery for the foreseeable future. But hopefully, the other fleshies had enough sense to run. Jungwoo and Mark should be halfway back to the Railroad by now, with any luck. He can only hope that Taeyong will focus on that as a bright side and not━

A lock slides open from the direction of the door. Johnny has just enough time to sit up straight and put steel back into his eyes before it swings open, and he gives each newcomer a cold glare as they file into the room. When a face appears in the doorway that isn’t new at all, only then does Johnny falter, and only for a moment. He does his best to let the shock of this reunion fracture through his insides rather than his expression. Taeyong would probably scold him for the initial slip. But it isn’t every day that you reunite with your former best friend who you’ve long believed is dead.

“Johnny.”

“Jaehyun.”

They’d been thick as thieves back in the days before the Railroad. He and Jaehyun had worked to protest Eluse’s increasingly unfair measures against average citizens. Together, they’d started to inspire quite the following, gaining traction even despite the city’s attempts to silence their voices. Then Jaehyun had been captured during a raid and assumed dead. Apparently, Johnny shouldn’t have assumed.

“You’re working for them now?” Johnny asks, voice carefully measured.

“I am.”

“And you know why they want me brought in specifically?”

“I do.”

They’ve been compromised. Johnny can’t be certain the extent of what Jaehyun’s superiors know, but this is enough to make up his mind. Though he doesn’t welcome death with open arms, he twists his left wrist fully in a position to break it and drag it from its restraints. The white pill planted a few layers beneath skin is living proof that Johnny will do whatever it takes to keep the Railroad’s information safe. His tolerance for pain is high. He’s still more trustworthy dead than tortured.

“That’s already been taken care of,” Jaehyun tells him suddenly, not seeming particularly bothered by Johnny’s intentions. “I’m the one who taught you that trick, remember?”

The wild abandon with which Johnny had been prepared to cut his life short just moments earlier evaporates on the spot. He stares long and hard at Jaehyun’s expression looking for...something, and ends the exercise feeling angrier and more disappointed than when he’d started. “What happened to you?” he demands. He hardly recognizes the man standing before him.

“The powers that be made me an offer. I took them up on that offer.”

“An offer of what, becoming one of their guard dogs?”

“I work with the broadcast department,” Jaehyun corrects him, unfazed. “We set up newscasts and control post-processing on any other programs.”

“Propaganda TV.” Johnny shakes his head disbelievingly. “That’s your dream now, huh? Leading the daily wave of brainwashing?”

Jaehyun blinks and continues like he hadn’t heard the words, “But enough about me; this is about you. Trust me when I say that you have a big role in what’s to come. All you have to do is play that role convincingly.”

Johnny feels his anger spike. “I will  _ not _ be your puppet. If you think for a second━”

“But you don’t really have a choice,” Jaehyun cuts him off. He nods to the others who’d come in with him, and the whole group moves back toward the door, Jaehyun tailing behind. Before he leaves, he turns back one last time. “If it makes you feel better,” he says, “I think you’re really going to make waves.”

A moment later, he’s gone. And Johnny is left with bitterness down to his bones and the new experience of wishing his friend had truly ended up dead.

⚖

The shop is much quieter since Taeil left. Emptier. And though it bruises Donghyuck’s pride to admit it, lonely. What’s the point in mentally taking notes on every interesting tidbit he’d noticed on his way home yesterday if there’s no one to share it with? What’s the point in inventing a new sequence of gears in his pop-out heelys if there’s no one to show it off to? What’s the point in being the funniest person he knows if, besides the very rare indulgent customer, the only one he can make laugh is himself?

Donghyuck feels like he’s being dramatic, but to be fair, a) that’s who he is as a person, and b) this is a huge change. With time, he’s sure, it will feel a little more natural. He’ll be able to play off of his customers just like he’d spent so much time bothering Taeil. And hopefully it will all be a moot point anyway if Taeil’s indeterminate amount of time turns out to be shorter than he’d expected, letting him show back up on the doorstep like he’d never been gone. 

Donghyuck is really pulling for that option. He even makes sure to eat his vegetables and wash behind his ears in case any extra speck of good karma will tip the scales in his favor. Mostly, though, he’s been filling up his time brainstorming new ways to combat the boredom that hangs over the shop in between customers, since he can only tinker on his own upgrades for so long without wanting to rip out the whole collection of metal and screws.

There’s no reason to expect anything other than the same old rut that his daily routine has fallen into. And then the bell above the door rings. Or rather, it clangs. Which means whatever client Donghyuck needs to deal with has practically burst in through the entrance.

“Just a second!” Donghyuck calls, pausing to roll his eyes before he turns away from his tools. “Welcome to Secondhand; how can I━ You again?”

There are two panting fleshies standing just inside the shop, one unfamiliar to him and one that he assumed he’d never see again. What strange twist of fate brought Mark back to the one place his kind didn't belong?

“I’m guessing you’re not here just because you missed me?” Donghyuck prompts.

He expects  _ some  _ kind of response from the fleshie. Instead, Mark shakes his head and lets out a dry cough as he keeps trying to catch his breath. Donghyuck is perplexed. He doesn’t know much about the Railroad, but wasn’t Doyoung bringing Mark there to be safe? There’s no reason he should look like he’s still running for his life. Unless…

“Where’s Doyoung?” Donghyuck demands.

“He’s fine, as far as we know,” the other fleshie answers. “Mark says Doyoung was the one to drop him off at the safehouse where he got picked up by the Railroad.”

“And you are...?”

“Jungwoo. I was brought in with Mark.”

Great. Donghyuck is more glad than he’ll ever admit out loud that Doyoung wasn’t picked off by a trigger-happy skinjacker, but that means this Jungwoo never got his seal of trust. Just Mark’s. Which, judging by what little Donghyuck knows about the kid, doesn’t exactly carry the same weight. It will have to do.

“That doesn’t explain why you two are back here.”

“We needed a place to hide.” Mark seems to have finally gotten air back in his lungs, but the flush around the edges of his face still remains. “There’s some kind of group after us ━ maybe skinjackers? ━ and I didn’t know anywhere closer to go.”

He still looks so earnest, staring at Donghyuck with those wide eyes. Even if Donghyuck had considered refusing him, he thinks his stubbornness would have easily crumbled. “How much of a head start did you have?”

“Not enough.”

A switch flips inside Donghyuck, now that he knows exactly what the stakes are and what he needs to do ━ what Taeil would do if he were still here. He keeps an eye out the front windows as he quickly ushers the two fleshies to the back. The small bathroom isn’t the most pleasant place to hide, despite Donghyuck’s attempts to keep it otherwise, but it’s better than being out in the open.

All he has to do is keep his cool and act like nothing out of the ordinary is going on. It’s an average afternoon. He’s an average shopkeeper with average clientele. And he most certainly knows nothing about anyone on the run from a deeply prejudiced system that simultaneously hails a certain kind of person as inherently valuable while also belittling them to nothing but their body and ability to have power exerted over them. Nothing at all.

He repeats this to himself when two men stride up the path and through the door. Then once more as their searching eyes drift from the shop’s interior to its one visible occupant. “Can I help you?” Donghyuck asks them, polite but firm. He doesn’t appreciate how one of the men seems to be slowly drifting away from the front counter.

The other man takes a moment to visibly size Donghyuck up, which makes the latter’s left eye twitch in an attempt not to bristle. “We’re looking for two fleshie fugitives,” the man finally says. “We think they might be looking for rebel sympathizers to hide them.”

“Well, I’m not sure what you’re implying, but if this is a criminal investigation, I’ll need to see some kind of warrant.” Donghyuck reaches into a drawer beneath the counter’s rim, withdrawing a slip of paper that he’s seen Taeil flash only twice. “Here’s a copy of my license to operate as a flesh doctor. If you’re looking for fleshies, this is the wrong place to look. Now, if you’re not here to purchase my services, good day.”

Donghyuck refuses to flinch underneath the men’s scrutinizing glares. He will  _ not  _ be intimidated, especially by people who one way or another profit off of human slave drivers. His unflinching posture and mantra from earlier must do the trick, because neither man presses the issue. They leave the way they entered, frustrated grumbling cut off by the door closing, and Donghyuck allows a solid ten minutes to pass before he lets the act drop.

First things first. He flips the sign in the front window to a bold-typed “CLOSED”. He pulls the blinds shut. Only then does he make a return trip to the bathroom.

“Okay.” Donghyuck swings the door open to let them breathe fresh air again. “They’re gone. Now someone tell me what’s going on.” The pained expression on Mark’s face almost makes him feel bad for being so blunt. Almost.

“We made it to the Railroad,” Mark explains, “and one of their runners was taking us to the next safehouse. When we got there, he figured out something was wrong and turned himself in as a distraction while we escaped out the back. Like I said, we didn't know where else to go. The Railroad headquarters is further away.”

“And we didn’t want to lead them straight to it,” Jungwoo adds. “I don’t think they were skinjackers. Did you see the pins they had on their shirts?”

“Eluse…” Donghyuck feels something cold slither down the back of his jacket. “So they sent out a team to target a runner? That can’t be good. They’ve never been so forward about stopping the Railroad before.”

“Do you have any way we could contact the Railroad?” Mark asks him. “I know you’re not really with them, but from what Doyoung said, you kind of know Taeyong, and...yeah. He might know what he wants us to do next. And he’ll want to know about Johnny.”

“Johnny?” Donghyuck hadn’t expected to recognize another name, but he finds his eyes going wide. “You mean Johnny as in Lee Taeyong’s  _ husband _ Johnny?

Jungwoo looks equally surprised. “What?”

“Yeah, signed the legal papers and everything, for what it’s worth anymore. Even I know that name. If Johnny’s with Eluse...that’s bad news.”

Donghyuck steps back into the shop’s storage area without waiting to see if the other two will follow. He tries a few of the filing cabinets before he finds one of Taeil’s that will actually open, flipping through assorted scraps of paper before he finds the familiar lined notecard. He’d consider it good luck that the scrawled contact information was still here if he didn’t know better than to chalk anything Taeil did up to luck.

Donghyuck doesn’t really know the enigmatic leader of the Railroad. He’s said maybe three words to him, all of which were variations of “Hi” from behind Taeil’s shoulder. But in this case, it should be more than enough. “Alright, here’s hoping this number is still in service,” Donghyuck says, and he punches it into the holopad.

It beeps once. Half of a second time. Then a vaguely familiar face is appearing from the shoulders up on the holo display, looking confused when he finds not the master but the apprentice. “Hello, Donghyuck,” Taeyong greets him warily. “I wasn’t expecting a call from you.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t expecting it either. I have two people that really need to talk to you.”

Donghyuck steps out of the way so that the others can occupy his space. Even from this distance, it’s easy to see the alarm that passes across Taeyong’s face when Mark and Jungwoo come into frame.

“What are you two doing there? Shouldn’t you be on your way to the next safehouse by now? It’s not like Johnny to give bad directions.”

“About that…” Mark starts, but he hesitates instead of continuing. Jungwoo lets the opportunity last a few more seconds before he steps in. “We were ambushed at the first safehouse. Some people from Eluse came and took Johnny, but he locked the doors so we didn’t get taken, too. Or killed. So we did the only thing we could: we ran. There were too many of them.”

For a long moment, Taeyong doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. The devastation in his expression says more than words ever could.

“Okay,” he finally breaks the silence with. “Okay. If they found you there, that means your entire route could be compromised. I’m sending you an alternate safehouse you can go to, which will have your next instructions. As for Johnny…” Taeyong’s voice wavers but doesn’t break. “I’ll handle it. Don’t blame yourselves.”

He abruptly ends the call before he can lose his composure, a short address with directions popping into the holopad’s feed a few seconds later. Donghyuck still doesn’t know Taeyong well. He knows Johnny only by name. He feels his heart twist in sympathy all the same.

“Looks like you have your next step,” Donghyuck tells a grim Mark and Jungwoo. “Memorize these and I’ll wipe the message. And I should have some extra rations that you can take along with you, too.”

“Thanks, Donghyuck,” Mark tells him earnestly. He looks a fraction less guilty, or at least distracted from it.

“It’s the least I can do. And don’t thank me just yet. There’s only one other thing I can really give you.” Donghyuck shrugs his shoulders almost helplessly as he thinks of all the potential dangers lurking around dark corners, of all the forces at play that were too powerful for them to anticipate.

“Good luck.”

⚖

For the first time when Doyoung returns to the old satellite yard, blood still humming with a revenge finally realized and a revelation uncovered, Yuta isn’t in the war room. His first thought is that the rebel leader is out somewhere nearby causing more trouble, which would surprise him about as much as the normal routine: not at all. He wanders another set of corridors with the intent of asking the first rebel he passes if his hunch is correct. Instead of answers, however, he finds a brand new question, one he’d never accounted for asking because of how unthinkable the chances seemed.

“Taeil?” Doyoung questions the man he nearly runs into.

He’s about to follow it up with the obvious: When did you get here? Why are you here in the first place? His confusion quickly shifts to anger as he quickly realizes at least one truth of the matter. To get inside, Taeil needs Yuta’s permission, which means he must know Yuta. And Taeil  _ knows _ that Doyoung and Yuta are well acquainted, has at least a surface-level understanding of their checkered history.

“You knew,” Doyoung accuses him. “You knew and somehow you never told me.”

“You never asked,” Taeil counters, but he doesn’t quite meet Doyoung’s eyes when he says it. Coward.

“That’s a bullshit answer and you know it. What are you doing here?”

“We have an arrangement. He refuses to let anyone but himself do his implants, but I’m the only one who can give him the treatment he needs to keep up with so many surgeries.”

Doyoung doesn’t understand. He feels the implications of Taeil’s explanation go straight over his head.

“I  _ mean _ ,” Taeil clarifies, clearly noticing a lack of response, “Yuta has so much of his original body replaced with metal that without my injections, his body rejects the implants at a rapidly accelerating rate. Without them, he dies.”

“You can’t be━”

“Oh, Doyoung. You’re back.”

Yuta chooses that moment to make an appearance at the end of the corridor. His arms are bare, free of the leather jackets he’s normally so fond of, and Doyoung can see spots of faded bruises next to fresh bandages now that he knows what to look for. Was Taeil being honest with him? While Doyoung was out getting his hands dirty, was Yuta really trapped here being shot up with who knows what chemicals into his system?

Yuta looks curiously between them as he draws near, seeming to pick up on the charged atmosphere between them. “Am I interrupting something?”

“We were just having a little chat,” Doyoung says rather coldly. The chill in his words doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You two know each other, then?”

“In theory.”

He knows how childish that sounds. Frankly, it’s beneath him. In the pause that follows, Doyoung feels like he should say something, explain to Taeil why he himself is at the base in the first place, but Taeil cuts that line of thinking abruptly short.

“I don’t need or want to know why you’re here, Doyoung. Trust me.” Then, to Yuta, “I’ll be in my quarters if you need me.” He turns and leaves the two of them by themselves before Doyoung can consider if one final snipe is worth the price of his dignity.

Yuta, to Doyoung’s relief, doesn’t comment on the exchange, only watching Taeil turn the corner with an unreadable expression. “Walk with me,” he tells Doyoung. It sounds just enough like a suggestion rather than a command that Doyoung lets him get away with it. He can understand old habits rubbing off in situations they shouldn’t.

They pass by three more rebels, who give Yuta reactions ranging from nervous glances to full-on salutes, before Doyoung deems them alone enough to talk in earnest. “Are you really dying?” he asks instead of skirting the issue. That's not the kind of people they are, or at least not the kind Doyoung wants them to be with each other. He’s dealt with enough disguised intentions and doublespeak elsewhere.

Yuta’s lips twist into that almost-smile of his that’s becoming increasingly common. “You still don’t mince words. But yes, I am.” He does look more grim then, if not overly torn up about it. “I’m living on borrowed time. Taeil’s helping to draw that time out, but I’m not going to make it as long as you and the others. Of course, even without any of the metal complications...I think that would still be the case. So I try not to think too much about it.”

They pause the conversation as they pass another pair of rebels. When they're once again out of earshot, Yuta asks, “And what about you? How did the final delivery to Hell go?”

Doyoung can see the moment replay itself in his mind’s eye as clearly as if he’d just pulled the trigger. He can feel the bullet tear itself away from his weapon and bury itself in the man’s skull with poetic grace. He can hear that chapter of his life finally close shut to make way for whatever comes next.

(He can still see a brief memory of that artificial sky, one he buries underneath all the others.)

“If he’s still out there somewhere beyond death, he’s burning.”

The look Yuta gives him then is a wicked thing. “Good.”

Whatever spark in his eyes that Doyoung had a brief glimpse of makes him shiver as they continue down the maze of hallways, passing it off as a stretch. Doyoung has never considered himself someone who needed affirmation of his actions to get by. He’s spent much of his life on his own, and been generally content with that fact. But having both the assistance and approval of someone whose opinion he actually respects, who he considers his equal, still does something for his brain just like when he tossed aside his status quo and pledged his conditional loyalty to the cause.

They finally come to a halt in front of what Doyoung recognizes as Yuta’s quarters. With the indirect route they’d taken, Doyoung hadn’t realized this was the direction they were heading. He should have known it was near impossible to wander aimlessly when one of them knew the place down to its very foundations.

Doyoung expects a goodbye. Instead, Yuta hovers in the doorway. “Want to come inside?”

“Is that as suggestive as you’re making it sound?” Doyoung shoots back, fully prepared to brush it off as nothing more than a line.

“That depends.” The spark from earlier still hasn’t left Yuta’s eyes, all the familiarity of years ago now tinged with the shadow of something entirely new.

It would be simple enough for Doyoung to backtrack on what they’d heavily implied in previous conversations, to return to being two lost souls orbiting around someone who at least understood. It’s also an open invitation, should Doyoung choose to accept.

“I guess I’ll have to make up your mind,” Doyoung tells him, and he steps inside.

⚖

Mark would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. Putting all of his mixed feelings about Taeyong and the Railroad aside ━ feelings that have only grown more mixed since witnessing the lengths Johnny would go to in order to protect them and how Taeyong immediately stepped in to help ━ he can’t say his faith in the integrity of their safehouse system is currently at its highest. If the chain could be attacked, even with the Railroad’s top runner present, what was stopping every other “safe” place they’d set up from being similarly compromised? Only Jungwoo’s repeated reminders that the Railroad wouldn’t have lasted for as long as they claim without having contingencies in place are keeping Mark from spiraling.

Taeyong’s directions are relatively easy to follow. They travel through villages in much the same way Mark and Doyoung had done previously, sticking to the fringes and not giving the impression that they have anything to run from. At first, their conversations had been a cover. Jungwoo suggested that being engaged with each other would help turn away curious eyes that would otherwise hone in on two silent travelers. What Mark had thought would remain empty words to fill the silence turn rather quickly into a substantial exchange of life experiences.

Jungwoo describes how he’d been wired for survival since early on, going from nearly being sold by his father to skinjackers in a desperate bid for cash to being rescued by a friend who taught him how to blend in and stay alive. Only years later when Jungwoo’s cover was blown and he no longer had friends to fall back on did he go searching for the rumored Railroad’s assistance.

Mark, in turn, shares his own story of growing up in a settlement so sheltered that he hadn’t known he was anything other than normal until Doyoung point-blank explained it to him. He hadn’t been forced to feel the sharp sting of betrayal from his own parents, only a gaping emptiness where they’d been taken from him by a factory explosion no one saw coming. Their roads to this point are vastly different, though the convergence of those roads seems so much more important now that they’ve been tossed into the thick of it. Different as they may be, they’re in this together.

“I think we’re almost there,” Mark realizes as he spots the next landmark. He’s not sure of the exact distance between each instruction, though Donghyuck’s rapidfire quizzing had drilled said instructions into his head, but he is sure that the statue in front of them is near the end of the list.

“Good thing, too.” Jungwoo nods in the direction of the darkening horizon. “See those storm clouds in the distance? They’ll be rolling in soon enough.”

All the more reason for them to get safely inside and start looking for a clue to the next location. By unspoken agreement, they pick up their walking pace to be as fast as possible without looking suspicious to the few lingering pedestrians still out in the evening hours. Mark counts down the number of streets in his head until he hits zero, and they quickly turn the corner, searching for the house with the green door...there.

“Second on the left,” Mark points out. He sees Jungwoo relax as much as he himself does. It seems like Mark wasn’t the only one having lingering doubts about finding the right place.

The handle turns with no resistance, and they gratefully step inside. The interior of the safehouse is...well, Mark is still grateful for shelter, but he’d been hoping for much less dust and cobwebs. When Taeyong had sent them to a backup location, he really should have put more emphasis on the “backup”. It looks like no one has stopped in here for years.

“I’ve seen worse,” Jungwoo concludes. He shrugs his pack off to set it on a table covered in a film of the aforementioned dust. “If you don’t mind checking for food, I’ll start looking for hidden messages.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Mark places his own bag next to Jungwoo’s and takes a minute to stretch his aching shoulders, flexing his hands out in front of him until something pops. The bag wasn’t even that heavy, yet that long toting anything on one’s back makes it start to feel like it’s full of rocks. Then he finally gets down to business.

“What do we have here…” he asks under his breath as he checks the cabinets. The first one is disappointingly empty. The second and third share the same fate. But the moment the fourth swings open to reveal a row of distinguishable packets, Mark’s mouth involuntarily starts to water.

“Hey, Jungwoo,” he calls, “there’s real food packets! None of that canned stuff that we usually find. Assuming the sink is still working, we can actually have something hot and fresh.”

“That’s great,” Jungwoo tells him. The answer sounds automatic, like he’s only half-listening. He’s returning from the back half of the house to inspect the front, it seems, with a furrow of concentration between his brows.

Personally, Mark thinks he should be a little more enthusiastic at the thought of a hot meal. Chemically-created foods like these aren’t fresh, technically, but they rarely go bad and are always surprisingly delicious. He grabs out three different packets and squints at the fine print directions on each of them, checking to make sure he can pull this off with nothing but added water and (hopefully) heat. He has a saucepan, at least, that he knows he can use. Now that he thinks about it, he should probably check both the tap and the stovetop first before he gets too excited for━

“Mark.”

He turns immediately, saucepan still in hand. “Yeah?”

Jungwoo, for whatever reason, has the front door propped open and a puzzled expression on his face, rubbing two of his fingers slowly together. “I was looking for some sort of clue,” Jungwoo tells him, “but I couldn’t find anything at all. So I double-checked if this was the right place, and…” He holds a finger up, visibly tinged green.

“Fresh paint?”

“Fresh paint.”

That doesn’t make any sense. For Taeyong’s instructions to work, the safehouse would have to be set up exactly as described at the point in time the Railroad leader relayed the list.

“Something’s not adding up,” Jungwoo continues. “No clues that I can find, the food that’s out of the Railroad’s budget, the paint on the door. I think someone might have━”

_ BANG! _ The door slams open the rest of the way, knocking Jungwoo over in the process. Mark has a half second window to see a man standing in the doorway with a strange-looking gun before it fires directly at him. A set of discs come flying out the weapon’s muzzle, separating to reveal a net that wraps tightly around Mark’s body and secures itself with a mechanical  _ click _ .

The sudden loss of balance sends him sprawling to the floor. He can barely move, much less fight back. The pan just misses hitting him in the head when it clatters down a second later. Jungwoo, meanwhile, is locked in a hand-to-hand struggle with their attacker, having wrestled the net-gun out of his grip. “What do you want with us?” Jungwoo demands as he dodges a punch.

“Easy money, kid. Only one type of person comes looking for this place.”

A skinjacker. Or a wannabe one, at the very least. Mark wonders if any other runaway fleshies have fallen into the trap, either because of the invitation of shelter or the swap of Railroad indicators. It couldn’t have worked if a runner was with them as usual, right? They would have noticed it was the wrong house? He hates how he can’t be certain.

Jungwoo’s street smarts are keeping him from being knocked down for now, but he’s clearly being overwhelmed by the man’s sheer size. Try as he might to wriggle his body back and forth, Mark is unable to break his own bonds so he can step in and assist. It’s infuriating. And then he realizes he might not need to step in after all. If he can just turn himself a few more degrees, shift his hand a few inches to the left…

“Jungwoo! Catch!”

Mark grips the handle of the fallen saucepan and slides it across the floor with as much force as his bound arms can muster. It takes Jungwoo one dangerously unguarded moment to pick up the makeshift weapon, then one more for him to slam the flat face of it squarely against the attacker’s temple.

The man goes down without a sound. Jungwoo doesn’t waste time inspecting the damage he’s dealt, immediately coming to Mark’s side and working out how to disengage the net. There ends up being a set of latches on each of the discs he needs to release, which would have been impossible for Mark himself to do from inside the binds.

Mark stands back up again with a heartfelt “Thanks,” to which Jungwoo counters, “It’s the least I could do in exchange for the frying pan.” Maybe they can call it even.

Now it’s just them, the not-safe safehouse, and the unconscious skinjacker out cold on the floor.

“I think…” Jungwoo says carefully, “that we need to kill him.”

Mark’s eyes go wide. That isn’t what he was expecting at all. “Kill him? That makes us as bad as they are!”

“Let’s not make false equivalencies here. This man might have sold dozens of fleshies into slavery before us, even killed a few in the process. If we hadn’t stopped him, he’d have done the same thing to dozens more. We can’t just leave him.”

“Then let’s think of something different. Maybe we can lead the peacekeepers to━”

“No.” Jungwoo looks genuinely angry, an emotion Mark hasn’t seen on him since they met. Even if he’s been frustrated before, he’s never let it show.

“I’ve kept quiet about it up until now, but not anymore,” Jungwoo continues without stopping. “This is just like when we almost got caught on the way here, because you refused to play the part and act like you hated the idea of fleshies walking free, to say anything but your truth. Well guess what, Mark? This is reality.” His eyes blaze. “And in reality, you should never wear your truth out in the open where anyone can see it. And you can’t always operate in moral black and whites. That’s how you get killed.”

Mark stares speechless at him, stunned. He feels hurt bubble up in his chest in a sudden wave. Is that really what Jungwoo thinks of him? What he’s thought the whole time? How can Jungwoo go around preaching such a philosophy when the very core of it is just so...wrong? It goes against every ideal Mark holds dear.

“And what’s the point of surviving,” Mark counters, “if I can never be myself or live how I want to live?”

“You’re alive to ask those sorts of questions.”

They’re clearly at an impasse when it comes to the theoretical. Mark doesn’t see an easy way to reconcile two such different points of view. But he has no intentions of letting Jungwoo go through with a murder today. “We are  _ not _ killing him.”

“Then what do you plan to do, instead? Because we’re not condemning more fleshies to a life in chains.”

“Well…” Mark falters. There has to be something. Jungwoo has given him an opening, however small, and he needs to seize the opportunity. “He has a commlink, doesn’t he? What if we use it to frame him: tie him up, send a message out that makes him sound like he’s rescuing fleshies, and leave him a note of thanks ourselves. If we call the peacekeepers out here like we’ve caught him in the act, wouldn’t they lock him up for working with the Railroad?”

Jungwoo considers him with an unreadable gaze. At last he concedes, “Fine. We’ll do things your way. This time.”

It still counts as a victory. Mark will take it. They secure the net that had immobilized Mark around the bounty hunter, giving him what Mark thinks is a well-deserved taste of his own medicine, then plant the evidence as quickly as they can. As soon as Jungwoo ends a rather convincing call to the peacekeepers’ emergency line from the man’s commlink, their work here is done. It’s time to go.

When Mark turns to leave, Jungwoo is already standing in the doorway. “Let’s go,” he says without looking at Mark. “We need to check the rest of the street for the painted-over green door so we can find our next instructions before the peacekeepers show up.”

His last words are pointed, though Mark chooses to look past the accusation. The thought of losing what was developing into a strong friendship is painful enough without extra barbs included. He steps out of the house knowing that while he’s stuck true to his heart, he’s paid a price.

⚖

Johnny can’t pinpoint how long he’s been held captive. He’d tried to keep track of it at first, mentally cataloguing when he grew hungry or tired in order to do his best approximation of what time had passed. Then he had to admit to himself that he was probably better off not knowing.

The reality of the situation is this: Eluse won’t be stupid enough to let the Railroad’s second-in-command walk free unless there’s some sort of underhanded deal involved, and Johnny would rather die than betray Taeyong’s trust. Sooner or later, they’ll dispose of him when they realize he’ll never cooperate. Better not to count the torture that might come before the end.

Jaehyun returns for the first time since their initial meeting sometime after Johnny stops counting. With all the time he’s been given to stew in his own thoughts, Johnny should have come to terms with how much his former friend has changed. He’s started to, to some extent. Acknowledged that it happened. But reconciling the openly-worn mischief he’d come to associate with that familiar face and the coldness that comes with it now is still unsettling enough to stop him from thinking about it for too long.

“Here,” Jaehyun tells him. He tosses a stapled set of papers into Johnny’s lap while the other two people with him work on adjusting the mechanical binds around Johnny’s wrists. They snap in place just above his elbows, instead, which allows him the range of motion to leaf through the papers and not much else.

Not that Johnny really needs to leaf through. He can guess their game from reading only the first few sentences on the top page. “This is a denouncement of the Railroad entirely, isn’t it?” he questions. “Why would I bother reading something you know I don’t believe a word of?”

“A denouncement, yes, but also a call for your leader to turn himself in,” Jaehyun clarifies. He steps away from the others, already heading for the door. “I don’t expect you to just read it to yourself. You remember which department I work for, don’t you? There’s a special broadcast slot with your name all over the reservation.”

Johnny’s eyes narrow. “You can’t expect━”

“Start practicing now, because there will be consequences if you don’t stick to the script. And there’s a ten second delay on the broadcast, too, so don’t get any funny ideas about doing this your way. Got it?”

“This isn’t going to work. There’s nothing you can do to force me into reading something so stupid on camera.” Johnny squares his shoulders and sits up as straight as he can manage with the binds engaged. “If this is your only angle, you might as well just kill me now.”

Jaehyun shows no reaction to the ultimatum other than checking his watch, which gets under Johnny’s skin more than it should. He would understand if anger had driven Jaehyun to this point, if his views of what was right pulled him here in a maelstrom of misplaced passion, but he seems so  _ empty _ . Like there’s nothing in there aside from a cage of skin and bones.

“I’m late for a meeting,” Jaehyun says in lieu of an answer. “I’ll see you again for the broadcast. Practice. And do give my associates the information they’re looking for, or things will get ugly. It’s better for everyone involved if you cooperate.” He steps out of the room before Johnny can formulate a response, leaving him alone with the two “associates” who seem more than excited to finally take matters into their own hands.

“Here’s the deal,” the man on the left tells him. “You give us the location of the Railroad’s base, you get off easy. You refuse━”

“Then you’d better show me, because you won’t be getting any answers. Jaehyun should know better.”

Johnny shouldn’t have taken his eyes off the other man. His neck snaps forward as a sharp blow strikes the back of his head, followed up by a hit to his right kneecap. The pain is sudden enough that Johnny can’t stop the hiss that escapes him, already feeling where bruises will be forming. Getting smacked around by regular flesh and blood would be painful enough, but the metal limbs striking him makes it harder to maintain a semblance of control. He still glares at them defiantly.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

“We have instructions not to leave marks anywhere the camera might pick them up. A shame, really. But it just means we can get creative.”

The next blow comes to Johnny’s side, followed by his gut and other kneecap in quick succession. He’s more prepared for it this time, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. All he can do for now is close his eyes and concentrate on breathing, do his best at checking out of the current situation however hard the inconsistent pauses and taunts make it to distance himself from the flow of time.

They won’t touch his face, at least. Unless they have some sort of wizard for a makeup artist, anything past his pain threshold would be a glaring souvenir on Johnny’s face for the whole city to see. After the failure of this special broadcast...well, he supposes anything is on the table. Best not to━

There are hands gripping his head in place. Why are they touching his face? Johnny’s eyes fly open to see a syringe in his peripheral just before he feels a pinprick at the back of his neck. The fruits of his struggles come too late when those hands let him go.

“What the hell did you shoot into my head? You’re trying to drug me now?”

The man who’d spoken earlier snorts. “Please. It was filled with nanobots. They have a nasty little habit of crawling around in that fleshie head of yours and…’stimulating’ certain neural pathways. Less fun for us, but it does get the job done.”

Johnny stops himself from snapping back. Expressing anger or any other emotion does nothing but take away what little remnants of control he still has. The thought of microscopic robots in his head terrifies him, if he’s being honest, but he refuses to let them see.

He can feel...something. As if there’s miniscule points of pressure behind his eyes, brief pulses that disappear as soon as he tries to focus on them. In fact, it’s getting harder to focus the longer those barely-there sparks go on.

“Feeling chattier now?” the second man asks.

A minute ago, Johnny might have told him to go to hell, despite what he’d said about showing emotions, but it’s hard to stay so angry with this soft fuzziness blurring the edges of his awareness. It’s an unusual feeling, but not unwelcome. It actually makes him feel more relaxed. Safe.

“I feel strange,” he admits, and regrets it for a moment before he wonders why it was such a bad thing to say. Bottling his feelings up all the time was bad for him. Taeyong had told him that many times, though he often didn't take his own advice. He’s lucky Johnny is always there to catch him when all those bottled-up feelings inevitably rise to the surface all at once.

Or, at least, he normally is. Where is Taeyong now?

“I miss him,” Johnny says. He hopes that these people will understand, that he doesn’t need to elaborate. How strange that he suddenly has a million things he wants to say but is having the hardest time getting words from his brain to his mouth.

“Do you, now? Maybe we can help you get back to him.”

A smile rises to Johnny’s face. “That would be nice. It seems like forever since I’ve seen him.”

He can’t seem to remember why they were separated. A job, maybe? That must be it. Johnny must have taken a wrong turn on the way back and needed to stop here first. Where was “here”? He can’t remember━

“If he’s with the Railroad, we should be able to find him, right? Let us know where to take you. We can go find him together.”

“Together…” That sounds nice, but there’s a nagging feeling in the back of Johnny’s head that makes him hesitate. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone about it, not even fleshies until I’ve brought them there. Taeyong would be angry with me.”

As nice as they seem, these two don’t look like fleshies. Only under very specific circumstances would Johnny ever give out the location, even if he was taking people there himself. Maybe they can be trusted. They do want to help him. But why━

“We’re Jaehyun’s friends, remember? Your old pal? You can trust us to get you there safely.”

Jaehyun’s friends. Jaehyun. A strange memory starts to take form before Johnny feels himself sink deeper into the softness surrounding him, head threatening to loll back with how relaxed his muscles are growing. Jaehyun was his friend. _ Is _ his friend. Any friend of Jaehyun’s is someone he can make an exception for.

“You can’t tell anyone else about this, okay?” Johnny tells them, slurring the words. “The Railroad headquarters is three klicks southwest of Embaro, through the pipe entrance by the empty riverbed. There’s...a camera at the door. Someone can...can…”

_ Let us in _ , he wants to finish, but his tongue feels too heavy in his mouth to speak.

“Good boy,” someone says, hand coming down on Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny has no idea which one of them it is, because their faces are blurring together in his mind into one hazy approximation of an image that quickly fades from view. A nap sounds good right now, he thinks. Later he can worry about...what was he worrying about again? It can’t have been that important.

Hours later, when Johnny jolts awake with a gasp, he realizes it was. He’s hit with a barrage of half-formed memories that makes him feel shame like he’s never experienced in his life. They hadn’t needed to beat it out of him. He’d given up the most important piece of information he possessed with a smile and not a single scar to speak of.

And now Johnny knows exactly what Jaehyun’s leverage is for making him recite the damning script that lies half-crumpled in his lap. He no longer has a choice.

⚖

Giving Yuta his reports, Doyoung thinks, would be a whole lot easier if the other man would stop being so...him. Yuta has decided to let more of his walls down when they’re alone, which is great in theory but getting mixed reception in execution. It’s hard to focus when Yuta takes every opportunity to twist Doyoung’s words into something much less appropriate for strategy assessments, to lean into his personal space without any reservations.

Halfway through explaining the latest diagram that he’d drawn up, Doyoung puts down the pages and turns to face Yuta fully, whose hands have started to wander while he listens. “Are you even paying attention?” Doyoung demands rather sharply.

Yuta makes no move to step back. “Of course I am. You know how important every detail of this plan is to me.”

“And I find it hard to believe you’re picking up on every detail when you seem much more interested in dragging me back to your room than planning the next hit.”

He really hopes the heat that rises to his ears isn’t visible. Doyoung isn’t one to be easily flustered, but having so much undivided attention is still new to him. He’s adjusting.

“Doyoung.” Yuta has one hand next to Doyoung’s own now, close enough that his intentions are clear without actually caging the other man in. One conversation had quickly changed that habit. “I trust you. I trust your intel. If it seems like I’m not paying attention, it’s because I don’t have to look for fifty ways to poke holes in all your ideas. Which is a nice change.”

Doyoung rolls his eyes, though they can both tell he’s appeased. “Good to know that’s what you’re really into. My diagrams. And here I thought there was a different reason you keep giving me bedroom eyes every time I come back from doing recon.”

“They  _ are _ some pretty sexy diagrams,” Yuta says with that almost-grin, and Doyoung huffs before leaning closer to━

The door swings open. Doyoung reaches for his weapon in the small window that his heart stops beating, only to remember that he’s unarmed. His surprise doubles when he gets a good look at the person who barged in unannounced, whose eyes widen in equal amounts of the same emotion. What in seven hells is Lee Taeyong of all people doing here?

Yuta’s warning hand on Doyoung’s arm prevents him from jumping back, the rebel leader clearly wanting to maintain his image of control even when caught in a position like this unaware. They’ve only just separated, slowly, when another rebel runs in behind Taeyong.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, out of breath. “I tried to stop him, but he was insistent.”

Yuta waves her off. “Close the door.”

She nods, giving Taeyong one last glare, and the door seals back shut. The three of them are alone. Doyoung finds it hard to appreciate either the irony or the poetic justice of their situation when he’s far past having his fill of surprises.

“How many more people I know do I have to run into, exactly?” he asks, more to himself than anything. He’s trying to start a new chapter, damn it, to go in a different direction than he’s been going for so many years. That’s a hard enough affair without faces from his past popping up unexpectedly. Even reconciling his memories of Yuta is off-putting enough some days.

Yuta doesn’t bother hiding his own annoyance. “How did you get in?”

“Taeil told the others to let me pass. Would you have told me to screw off if you’d known I was here?”

Yuta mutters some choice words under his breath, and Doyoung notices Taeyong looking between the two of them with an unreadable expression on his face. “Who let  _ him _ in?”

“I did,” Yuta cuts in, “which is more than I can say for you. I’m surprised you’re still speaking to me when you made it very clear you never wanted us to have contact again.”

Doyoung doesn’t know what would have been worse: slowly growing apart until they all woke up one day and realized they weren’t friends anymore, or burning long-standing bridges left and right in a series of escalating blowups. In the end, it had been an ugly combination of both. Where his reunion with Yuta had ended up healing some of those old scars, this one is reopening wounds that are best left ignored.

“I meant what I said then, and I’ll say it again now,” Taeyong seethes. “You’re a monster, Yuta. You’ve gone too far.”

“Right. Like my way of changing things is any worse than your pathetic one-offs to get a few fleshies to safety while a system chokes the life out of anything left.”

“Better than becoming everything we fought against!”

“Bullshit, you take that back!”

Yuta’s entire body has gone taut, as if ready to pounce. Doyoung has his own opinions on the argument at hand, but he knows the last thing they need right now is for two of them to be at each other’s throats. The subtle hand he presses against Yuta’s wrist says as much. Thankfully, the other man gets a hold on himself before Doyoung needs to get much less subtle about it. Glares and weighted silence are still better than a fistfight.

“I see you haven’t changed,” Taeyong says warily.

“Neither have you.”

Doyoung takes that as his cue. “If you two are done,” he says pointedly, “Taeyong, what are you doing here?”

It’s concerning how quickly the fight fades from Taeyong’s eyes. Beneath the anger that he’d stormed in here with, the Railroad leader looks more shaken than Doyoung has seen him in a while. The only other time he can recall in recent memory had to do with a certain━

“It’s Johnny,” Taeyong admits. “There was a drop-off a few days ago that got intercepted by someone from Eluse. The fleshies who were there got to safety, but Johnny...they took him.” He pauses before reluctantly admitting, “I need help. I don’t have the resources or the intel to find him, and believe me when I say I’ve  _ tried _ . All I’ve found are dead ends.”

“So you came crawling back to the person who betrayed all you stand for.”

“Yuta━”

“You thought you’d pick the monster you knew over the unknown one.”

“I didn’t mean━”

“I know exactly what you meant, Taeyong,” Yuta cuts him off. After letting the words hang in the air for a moment he continues, “I can help, but I’ll need something in return. You’re not the only one with limited resources.”

“I can give you a handful of safehouses we’re no longer using.”

“Not good enough. If they’re decommissioned, that probably means they’re compromised.”

Taeyong’s expression shifts, obviously about to say something they’ll all regret. When Yuta speaks again, his voice is ice cold. “Maybe you should reconsider if it’s wise for you to threaten me in the middle of my own home.”

The words do make Taeyong reconsider. He swallows down whatever he was about to say and instead asks, “Does Doyoung really need to be here for this?”

“Whatever you can tell me, you can tell Doyoung, too,” Yuta answers before Doyoung can protest. Doyoung can’t deny that it feels nice to be part of something like that again, as simple a phrase as it may be.

Realizing Yuta isn’t going to budge on the issue, Taeyong acquiesces, “Fine. What do you want?”

“I do have a question about your headquarters that’s been on my mind…”

Taeyong pales. “Yuta, please, you can’t ask me to━”

“Relax. I’m not trying to take it from you. I’m not cruel. My question was if you ever finished that project you started with the short-range scramblers.”

“Oh, I’m...yes. I finished. They block communication from any Eluse-manufactured devices within a radius around the tunnels, which helps us avoid getting detected by their scanners.”

Yuta looks genuinely impressed. “Good to hear. I want your code.”

“And I’m guessing you won’t tell me what you need it for?”

“You guessed correctly. And you’re not exactly in a position to negotiate.”

If looks could kill ━ or at least, strangle━ Yuta would be on the floor. “Fine. It’s yours.”

“Then it’s settled.” Yuta pauses for a moment, then adds less brusquely, “Listen, we’ll get him back. When it comes to operations like this, we know what we’re doing. Now, I’m going to draw up a new map while you two catch up, since it seems like you need to talk.”

Yuta takes his leave, then, though not before purposefully brushing a hand over Doyoung’s hip with a shameless “Come find me when you’re done.”

There’s exactly zero doubt in Doyoung’s mind that it’s done for no other purpose than to get a rise out of Taeyong. It’s stupid. It still manages to work. The instant that the door seals, Taeyong turns on Doyoung, looking as furious as he had when he first barged in.

“I can’t wrap my head around it,” he says. “How can you still be around him, much less  _ involved _ with him, when he’s made it clear what he plans on doing? Yes, we were close before, but come on, Doyoung. Don’t you see what he’s become?”

Doyoung knows he doesn’t have to justify himself. He repeats the words twice more to himself before he even thinks about opening his mouth. Still, he can’t help but defend the choices he’s made, at least to some extent.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he counters. “You haven’t been on your own. Johnny’s been there with you since nearly the day after our little trio split up, not to mention the rest of the Railroad. I’ve had no one. And even though I enjoyed being on my own for a while, this is what I need now.”

“If you needed a friend, you could have come to me. You still can. I know we’re nowhere as close as we used to be, but━”

“But you’re not who I need. I’m sorry,” Doyoung turns him down. “I don’t need someone to listen. I need someone who understands. Who  _ gets _ it. He and I don’t exactly agree on everything, but I’m happy where I am.”

Their argument lapses as Taeyong seems to struggle choosing his next words.  _ He really isn’t deterred yet, is he? _ Doyoung thinks, and actually finds himself proud of how the other man has learned to stand his ground. Time apart really had done something good.

“Doyoung,” Taeyong finally continues, “I don’t think you fully understand who you’re dealing with here. Stories get back to me about things the rebels have done under Yuta’s orders, about things he’s done himself. He executed an entire squad of peacekeepers after they’d surrendered and laid down their arms. He held a priest’s son for ransom and shot him in the head when she didn’t deliver.”

He hesitates. “The day before I walked away from you, I saw something I shouldn’t have. He secretly took one of the peacekeepers prisoner after our last supply hit together, kept him tied up nearby where he kept returning to torture information out of the man. The things I saw Yuta do when I followed him there...That’s when I knew he’d stepped down a path we couldn’t pull him back from. That’s when I knew he was lost.”

In truth, Doyoung didn’t know about any of this. His memory of their first morning separated is little more than a fog of hurt and loss, and he had no idea what Yuta had been involved in not even a day earlier. The revelation isn’t one easily brushed aside. And yet…

“I’ve already seen him do and talk about worse. I’m not blind to all the darkness he carries with him.”

“And you still stand by his side?”

“I do.”

Doyoung wishes Taeyong didn’t look so sad. It was easier to brush off his concern when it was hidden by outbursts of anger and disapproval.

“You love him?” Taeyong asks, quieter, and it throws Doyoung for a loop only because he hadn’t expected the other would be bold enough to ask.

“Like I said, he’s who I need in my life right now, in a lot of different ways. You can draw your own conclusions.”

For a few seconds more, Taeyong holds his gaze. Then it decidedly drops in time with the line of his shoulders. Defeat. “I hope you’re happy, Doyoung,” he says without looking up.

Before Doyoung can puzzle out just how to respond, Taeyong turns and leaves.

⚖

As petty as it is, Jungwoo still doesn’t want to speak to him. Anything he says to Mark is by necessity only, either a course correction or a muttered warning that they need to switch sides of the street to call less attention to themselves.

This isn’t like him. No matter how frustrated or fed up he gets, he’s learned that it’s always better to approach life with a smile. It burns far fewer useful bridges and is incredibly effective at making others believe he’s more naïve than he really is. When it comes to survival, being underestimated is never a disadvantage.

But now he’s stuck with Mark. He likes the other fleshie in theory, but that’s outweighed by the sinking feeling that Mark is going to get them both killed if he keeps it up with this heaven-sent act. Jungwoo didn’t scrape by for years just to have his one opportunity for a new life snatched from underneath him by someone who’d only recently learned the truth of what he is. All of the sacrifices, all of the pretending...he won’t let it be for nothing. Even if it means stepping on toes.

After uncovering a message at the last safehouse ━ the real safehouse ━ the two of them are currently on their way to the next one. Not having had the chance to ask Johnny, who probably wouldn’t have told him anyway, Jungwoo has no idea how many more of these safehouses are on the path they’re following. One? Three? Twenty? Whatever the number, can at least one of them actually live up to the “safe” that’s so clearly implied in its name?

In recent hours, however, Jungwoo’s biggest concern isn’t how much longer the latter parts of their journey will last. His thoughts have shifted instead to the dark clouds on the horizon, which have enough of a sickly hue to them that they’re sure to bring a deluge of acid rain rather than their less toxic counterparts. Yet another complication he’d rather not deal with right now.

Mark, as sheltered as he might have been, thankfully seems to have experience with these kinds of storms. His gaze keeps drifting between the stormclouds and their selection of available cover with equal worry. He’s the one to finally cut the dead air between them and ask, “Should we try to get inside?”

“If you see a place that looks abandoned. Otherwise there’s no guarantee we’re not trapping ourselves in an even worse situation.”

Their pace picks up. The clouds roll closer. Jungwoo wishes that their footsteps would stop sounding like clock ticks, because it’s not helping with his blood pressure. Or that they would at least be loud enough to mask the sound of thunder that gets closer each time it rumbles.

“Jungwoo, I really think━”

“I know. Give me a second.”

Loathe as he is to admit defeat, Jungwoo knows that they might not make it to their destination in one straight shot before the weather renders it unwalkable. Would that awning over there be enough? Would they be questioned stepping into that shop until the danger passes? Is that the rotunda up ahead near the end of the directions they’d been meticulously following?

The last question comes suddenly, reigniting something in Jungwoo that the thought of toxic rain had watered down to smoke. “Four more streets to go,” Jungwoo says. “If it’s about to downpour, forget about appearances. Run.”

Mark should have enough survival instincts to manage that, at least. Thunder rumbles again, much too close for comfort, and Jungwoo realizes he’s about to find out.

“Run!”

All attempts at subtlety forgotten, they race down the street. There are no other pedestrians in sight, which should hopefully counteract any attention they’d otherwise draw, but that observation is soon lost in the singular focus of Jungwoo’s tunnel vision: get to safety at all costs.

Their route leads them to a winding dirt path, at the end of which stands a house like any other. A simple arrangement of flowers hung on the door marks it as their destination. If he had time to think, Jungwoo might have been surprised at how freshly-cut those flowers look. Now he’s nothing but limbs and tendons and pressing himself against said door as the sky opens up and weeps.

_ Mark _ .

The other fleshie is a few critical steps behind. He dives under the awning with a shout just as the first drops lick against the fabric of his shirt, eating a greedy trail up of fabric. Once again, Jungwoo moves.

He shouts Mark still and rips the other’s shirt free, tossing it aside before it moves on to consuming flesh. He’s shoving Mark into his previous position against the door, shielding him from what could become slanted rain dangerously fast, when the door opens to reveal an older woman who looks far less surprised to see them than she should.

For a moment, Jungwoo forgets himself. For a moment, he lets the thought form that she looks kind. That he can trust her.

“Don’t be shy, you two,” she tells them. “You’d best come in before the storm gets any worse.”

Mark’s eyes light up, about to take the offer, but Jungwoo sees him hesitate, sees him look back over his shoulder. He’s made the gullible softie start thinking twice, has he? Maybe there’s hope for him, after all.

“Were you expecting us?” Jungwoo asks the woman.

“In a way,” she answers like she’d been expecting the question. “I’m always expecting people  _ like _ you. Ones who need a place to rest, however briefly, before they continue on their journey.”

She knows. She knows, and she’s been transparent about it. Jungwoo supposes that’s the best they can ask for. He nods at Mark’s unspoken question.

“Let’s head inside.”

-

The smell of the oven cooking is making Jungwoo’s mouth water. He’s still enjoying the warmth of the house, sinking into a chair that’s more than bare-bones structure, not smelling like he’s been on the run for the last week after briefly wiping himself down in the privacy of the bathroom. He’s not foolish enough to complain. But one thing is for sure: dinner can’t come soon enough.

Even thinking it makes him feel like he’s jinxing their situation, but Jungwoo feels great relief at how well things have turned out for them, if only for the moment. The woman ━ Pamela ━ had no sooner invited them into her home than she’d given them a brief tour and gotten Mark a change of clothes. Then she’d led them to two open chairs at the kitchen table and told them to make themselves comfortable; she’d been in the middle of making dinner for herself and her grandson when Mark and Jungwoo turned up on her front steps.

The promise of a warm meal instead of canned mush is making it very hard for Jungwoo to stay suspicious. If it’s a distraction tactic, it’s an effective one.

“Ah, here we are,” Pamela says. Jungwoo looks over to see her pulling a baked roast out from the open oven, the smell of it wafting toward the table with even greater poignancy than before. Jungwoo pointedly swallows so he doesn’t drool.

“Do you need help with that?” Mark asks, already halfway out of his seat, but Pamela stops him immediately.

“Nonsense. You two are our guests! Just sit tight and everything will be ready in no time.” She raises her voice so it reaches what Jungwoo presumes is the second floor. “Ned, come down! We have company!”

“Coming, Gran!”

A boy no older than nine comes running down the stairs, seeming hardly fazed at the sight of two strangers in his kitchen. He and Pamela work quickly to slice the roast and pile helpings on top in generous spoonfuls, to the point Jungwoo can already feel his stomach bursting. Plates are slid onto the table, the other two chairs are taken up by their residents, and at last Jungwoo digs in.

The food is exquisite. His taste buds have gotten so used to anything edible that he’s sure it could only be mediocre and taste like a feast made for a king, but it frankly doesn’t matter. If someone told Jungwoo that the acid rain had killed him and this was heaven, he wouldn’t question it for a second.

Across the table, Mark looks similarly ecstatic, though he’s digging in with more of a forced attempt at manners than Jungwoo cares to make. To each their own.

“Thank you for the food,” Jungwoo does make sure to thank both of their hosts between bites.

“Grandma Pam always makes extra when she thinks more visitors will be showing up soon,” Ned answers. “You’re lucky to get them fresh.”

He points as he says it, and Jungwoo can’t help but notice the intricate set of rods and wires that make up his hand. Not a fleshie, then. Not a surprise, considering that was the norm, but he’d assumed...well, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is how nice it feels when Pamela and Ned pull them into conversation like they're family, how Jungwoo’s belly is full and his whole body buzzes with a pleasant warmth as the evening stretches on.

Ned is an inquisitive child, openly curious about both fleshies in an endearing way that only children can be. Pamela watches them all with a twinkle in her eye, interjecting her own thoughts into the conversation but otherwise letting Ned run through his list of questions like it’s the most valuable information in the world. Jungwoo sees Mark laughing across the table, happy and unguarded for the first time since they’ve met, and finds himself joining in despite the friction between them that still hasn’t had time to sort itself out. Is this what it’s like to coexist without worrying about getting kidnapped in your sleep?

Too soon, the meal is finished. Mark and Jungwoo concede defeat against the rest of the food on their plates and assist the others with cleaning up the leftovers, despite Pamela’s insistence that they don't need to step in. When the kitchen is spotless, she sends Ned to get ready for bed and leads the pair to an empty room. If the meal had been Jungwoo’s vision of heaven, an actual bed is even more proof of cosmic intervention.

“You’ll need to head out tomorrow bright and early,” Pamela tells them, “before anyone is up to see you going. But until then, get some well-deserved rest.”

That garners her a string of profuse “thank you”s which she waves off with a smile, but Jungwoo stops her just before she turns to go. He has to know.

“Why?” he asks. “Why risk everything for people like us?” Because he’s seen Ned’s hand and Pamela’s leg and can’t wrap his head around why this safe haven exists in the first place.

Pamela looks unsurprised at the question, if more somber than before. It can’t be the first time she’s been asked.

“Ned’s parents were fleshies, too,” she tells them. “They were abducted by skinjackers when he was barely old enough to walk and were killed before they made it to Eluse. How could I not want to help get other people to safety?” Her kind eyes are piercing. “And more importantly, because you  _ are _ people. Not some creatures to be gawked at, not a commodity to be auctioned off. Anyone who stands idly by is just as guilty as the ones doing the buying and selling.”

Jungwoo doesn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” he repeats, though the words fail to capture exactly what he wants to tell her.

She seems to understand anyway, stepping back outside the room with one last smile. “Don’t say up too late,” she warns. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

A long moment of silence follows her departure. Jungwoo thinks they both need that moment to digest all the events that had transpired today (not to mention the roast).

Hesitantly, Mark asks, “You’re not going to ask me to sleep on the floor, are you?”

Jungwoo might have been frustrated with him, but he’s not a bully. And the aftermath of tonight’s dinner has him feeling more sentimental than usual. “Not a chance. But fair warning: I’ve been known to toss and turn pretty badly.”

Mark’s smile is cautious but there. “And I always end up with all my limbs starfished, so I think we’re even.”

“Deal.”

They take turns washing up, changing into oversized sleepwear that Jungwoo realizes must have belonged to Ned’s father, and immediately crash side by side onto the bed’s plush surface. Jungwoo has a fleeting thought that he’s now spoiled himself ━ how is he supposed to go back to throwaway, ratty mattresses now that he’s remembered what an actual bed feels like? ━ but he’s too content to chastise himself. He instead basks in the silence, finding solace in this one moment of calm.

“You know,” Jungwoo says quietly, “Pamela reminds me of you.”

When he doesn’t immediately get a response, he thinks Mark must have already fallen asleep. Then, “I thought you liked her.” It would be funnier if he didn’t sound so genuinely hurt beneath the joke. Jungwoo weighs his pride against his heart and finds the scales tipping to the other side.

“I don’t think I can live like that,” he admits. “Like either of you, always searching for the best in people and putting yourself in harm’s way for what you believe is right. But...I think the world is a better place because it has people like you in it.”

In the faint glow of moonlight leaking from behind the curtains, Jungwoo can see Mark smile.


	4. Chapter 4

The sack doesn’t come off of Johnny’s head until he feels the people leading him secure his legs to a new chair. He’d tried to keep track of the turns they’d taken, out of habit and not hope, but he’d lost track somewhere in the middle of the convoluted route they’d taken from his cell to...the studio?

That’s his best guess, at least. The chair that’s become his new home is part of an interview setup in the center of a circular room, which is surrounded on most of its edge by glass walls and the remaining by solid stone. Past the line of cameras and through the glass, Johnny can make out an army of dials and monitors, along with a handful of uniformed people darting between equipment.

He also sees a smartly-dressed woman let herself in through the single interior door. Her heels click on the tile before she takes a seat across from him with a smile that’s all business. Johnny doesn’t say a word.

A thought crosses his mind, briefly, that they haven’t secured his arms this time. He might be able to stretch and get at least a swing in. But what good would it do? He still couldn’t make a run for it. The lack of restraints is of no benefit to him, only serving to make him look more believable on camera without signs of being held prisoner.

His body, at least, screams at him fractions less from his earlier injuries when there’s less material coming into contact with it. By now, that pain has become little more than background noise if he purposefully doesn’t feed it attention. Johnny knows it could be worse. And he also knows that he needs to make it through a different kind of pain while he does this interview exactly as instructed. Because if even the slightest chance exists that Jaehyun will show mercy and keep the not-quite-spoken agreement between them, it’s worth it. A lie ignited in exchange for a secret kept.

The blow in public opinion to those not already indoctrinated by Eluse will be a bad one. The Railroad has always relied on volunteers and acts of good samaritans, which is only possible through word of mouth and willing supporters. Still, it would survive. A direct attack on its heart of operations? That would be a death sentence. Johnny will not throw away everything he and Taeyong have built together.

“ _ Patching in the teleprompter now _ ,” Jaehyun’s voice comes from over the loudspeaker. “ _ We go live in thirty seconds _ .”

Johnny hadn’t realized the other man arrived. He finally spots Jaehyun through the glass, monitoring the scene in front of him with his arms crossed and his expression cold enough that Johnny has to resist the urge to shudder.

“Back straight and eyes on me until you’re prompted,” the interviewer instructs him. “You can read the prompter just past my shoulder. Take breaths between sentences so it sounds more natural.” Johnny sends one last glare her way as the final countdown begins.

“And  _ do _ try not to mess this up.”

A third spotlight clicks on above them to bathe the room in brighter white. A sea of green lights up behind the glass. “ _ And...rolling _ .”

The interviewer turns to the nearest camera with a few more shades of artificial sunshine painted across her face. “Good evening, and welcome to your weekly news special ‘A Capital Cup’. I’m Nina Bowman, and tonight I have an exclusive guest here with me in the studio: the right-hand man of the infamous ‘Railroad’ terrorist organization, Youngho Suh. It’s good to have you here, Mister Suh.”

“It’s good to be here, Nina,” Johnny reads off the prompter, trying not to sound as disgusted as he feels. He’s not even selling out yet and he already feels like he’s done something irredeemable.

“Now, for our viewers who don’t know, can you describe what the Railroad does?” she asks.

Though Johnny had refused to read over the script in too much detail, sick at the thought of those words coming from his mouth, he remembers it starting like this. Softball questions which will quickly devolve into a full-blown condemnation.

“We smuggle fleshies out of Eluse and nearby settlements before they can be sold to buyers.” Belatedly, he realizes the prompter says ‘steal’ and hopes the change is one he can get away with.

“And you are heavily involved in this process?”

“I lead most of the operations and share in the decision making.”

Nina looks at him intently. “So would you say that you know everything the Railroad does, and are privy to whatever information it has gathered on Eluse and its citizens?”

The question makes Johnny distinctly uncomfortable. “Yes, but━”

“Excellent. Thank you for your quick answers, Mister Suh. I see you’ve taken it to heart that Eluse has cleared your name and gifted you with our trust. Now let’s get to the question that I’m sure everyone is asking. Why are you here with us today for this exclusive broadcast?”

Here it comes. Very aware of the array of cameras turned on him, Johnny does no more than pause to prepare himself before he flicks his eyes up to the next screen of the teleprompter. This is for the right reasons, he reminds himself. The lesser of two evils.

“I’ve come here today,” he hears himself saying, “because I have important information to share with the citizens of Eluse, information that I feel obligated to make public.”

When Johnny pauses next, he has to remind himself not to tense his entire body, to make it look like he wants nothing more than to be tethered to this chair.

“There are those among you who claim to be on your side, who claim to be doing the right things for the right reasons, but this is a lie. I have proof of their crimes which will be uploaded to the Holonet for public viewing after the broadcast, but I need you to hear these crimes straight from the person who uncovered them. First, Jocasta Winters for…”

What is this? Jocasta is a government official who had cracked down on their safehouses around the capital’s outer districts. This isn’t about Taeyong at all.

Johnny glances at the interviewer, confused, but her sunny expression doesn’t change. He glances at Jaehyun and nearly has his heart stop when he sees the other man grinning wickedly through the glass, looking more like his past self than Johnny is prepared for.

“Go on, Mister Suh. We’re all on the edge of our seats.”

“Jocasta Winters for embezzling charity donations. Harlan Senoda for forcing his underage daughter into an arranged marriage with a temple scribe in exchange for extra votes.”

In his peripheral, he sees pandemonium. Though the glass blocks any sound beyond Nina shuffling her cue cards, Johnny can clearly make out gunfire and falling bodies.

“Keira Thoryn for smuggling illegal firearms into the city. And high priest Sergei Kavoli for tricking churchgoers on multiple occasions into becoming unwilling participants in ritualistic human sacrifices.”

“These are some startling revelations, Mister Suh. Thank you for sharing them with us.” A light in the back turns red. The teleprompter throws up an error message before it goes blank. “I think that’s all the time we have for today. Once again, I’m Nina Bowman, and thank you for tuning in to ‘A Capital Cup’. Until next time!”

Johnny remains immobile after her sign-off more out of shock than wondering if the cameras are still rolling. He still can’t wrap his head around the accusations he just read out to the entire population tuned into the broadcast. Government officials, a high priest…

“Let’s get you out of these binds,” Nina says.

Without the fake persona, Johnny notices how sharp her eyes really are, not to mention how deftly she unlocks the cuffs around his ankles. Johnny is barely on his feet when the door opens and Jaehyun enters, looking worse for wear but more alive than he has since the beginning of their reunion.

“Thanks, Nina,” Jaehyun tells her sincerely. “There are no witnesses left in the studio, and the two from the interrogation have been dealt with. We’re running on about three minutes of broadcast delay looping back to the station for review.”

“I’ll cover for you. Get moving.”

“Jaehyun, what the  _ hell _ ━” Johnny starts to ask, but the other man shakes his head. “Not now. Let’s get out of here first, and then I’ll explain.”

Johnny knows better than to argue with his one chance of escape, as unexpected and confusing as that chance may be. With one last nod to Nina, Jaehyun leads the two of them out of the room, tossing a sidearm Johnny’s way from a body that Johnny purposely doesn't look too closely at. He’s been through a lot of violence and death in his life. He still doesn’t like to see it up close.

They backtrack through some of the hallways Johnny must have been led through on the way to the studio. It seems like a reckless strategy, though when questioned, Jaehyun insists it’s the route least likely to end in disaster. The ladder they use to drop down into the maintenance tunnels feels like a hefty sigh of relief in itself.

“Alright, now there’s no one to overhear us,” Johnny says as they continue at that same hurried pace. “I think you owe me an explanation.”

“I do. Sorry I had to keep you in the dark.” Jaehyun winces as the muted sounds of an alarm filter down into the tunnels. “I did get captured back when we were separated. They would have killed me, but I bluffed my way into working for Eluse on the idea that I’d be most likely to find you and the dissenters who supported us by extension. I’ve been working broadcasts while also heading your criminal investigation and gathering support in the city for policy changes. Figured that if I was going to be stuck in the belly of the beast, I should at least be in a position to make a difference.”

“Say I believe you. That doesn’t explain why you actually sent your people after me.”

“Pressure from above. I couldn’t stall any longer, so I finally put a plan in motion. You played your part well, too. Told you it’d be an important one.”

Johnny is silent for some time as he tries to wrap his head round this new reality. If they weren’t on the run and he hadn’t tried so hard to block it out, maybe he would think back to the times Jaehyun had spoken to him in vague double-entendres that were arguably open to interpretation. There are far more important things, however, that he needs answers to.

“Is the Railroad safe?”

“As it ever has been. Like I told Nina, the only other two who knew about it were dealt with. I needed the location for insurance, in case you weren’t in a condition to take us there yourself...or if you didn’t want to take me.” For the first time since their reunion, Jaehyun looks apologetic. “I’m sorry for the way things played out, even if it was necessary.”

How exactly is Johnny supposed to feel? He’s happy, he supposes, that Jaehyun hasn’t changed as much as he’d first thought. But he’s still changed. And he’d still willingly sold Johnny out, ripped information from him, and had him tortured, even if it was supposedly for a worthwhile plan. What else had Jaehyun done during his time in Eluse to stay alive and get into that position he’d wanted to make a difference from?

“One last question,” Johnny says as the approach the end of the tunnels. “That list you had me read with the charges. Were they all real?”

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

Johnny is spared from thinking too long on that answer when they emerge from another ladder only to be greeted with a group of surprised peacekeepers. That firefight is followed by several other skirmishes on their way toward the exit. Johnny is glad he’s not alone, glad the ghost of teamwork between them is still there, faint as it may be, because otherwise he doesn’t know if he’d have come out the other side unscathed.

Jaehyun can’t open the back door fast enough, and the air outside has never felt more refreshing on Johnny’s skin. Now all they have to do is━

“Hands up where I can see them. Don’t get any━ Johnny?”

Johnny wouldn’t need to look to know whose voice is breaking midway through saying his name. He’d recognize it in an instant, feels a visceral pull in the pit of his stomach toward its source. “Taeyong. You’re here?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so surprised. He’s just...overwhelmed. At the thought the other man had risked so much to come here with a team, at the memory of thinking that Johnny would never lay eyes on him again.

“Of course I am. Where else would I be? You really think I wouldn’t be launching a rescue mission the instant I knew something went wrong?”

“Johnny,” Jaehyun asks from his left, “Who’s this? Friend of yours?”

Johnny realizes Jaehyun has a gun pointed suspiciously in Taeyong’s direction and quickly lowers it for him. He’s not taking chances. “You could say that.”

There’s so much he wants to say to Taeyong, so much he wants to apologize for, but he’s not sure where to start. He’s still fumbling for words when Taeyong breaks his public persona to rush forward and loop his arms securely around Johnny’s neck, holding him in a tight embrace that leaves nothing to interpretation.

“A friend, huh?” Jaehyun is muttering with a snort, but Johnny barely pays it any mind. Later, he’ll find actual words to express what he’s feeling. They’ll sit and talk this through, mending damaged pieces back together like they always do. But for now, this wordless reunion of “I missed you” and “I’m not ready to say goodbye” is more than enough.

Taeyong has to be the one to step away. Reluctantly, Johnny lets him. They’re still on the run, he has to remind himself. They could be discovered any minute now with the building on high alert.

“And who’s this?” Taeyong asks, echoing Jaehyun’s earlier question.

“Jaehyun. The Jaehyun I told you about.”

Taeyong’s eyebrows shoot up, though he doesn’t probe any further. Yet. Johnny is well enough acquainted with that look to know he’s in for a line of questioning later. “I don’t suppose you’ll explain how you managed to find me?” Johnny asks in place of an explanation.

A grimace finds its way onto Taeyong’s face. “Let’s just say we’ve both had run-ins with our pasts recently. Drastic times, drastic measures, and all that.”

“Speaking of drastic…” Jaehyun cuts in. “I’m sure you both have catching up to do, but we need to get going. Even though I arranged for the path to be clear, our window is already closing.”

“I helped with that on the way here,” Taeyong reassures him, looking rather proud of himself. “Johnny, you trust him enough to bring him back?”

It seems like bringing up the blackmail situation now would be a conflict they don’t need. Johnny decides to hold his tongue on that matter and instead answer with a simple “Yes”.

Taeyong nods. “That’s good enough for me. Jaehyun, welcome to the Railroad.”

Johnny feels his past and present slide in place next to each other with a jagged sort of fit. And he’s distinctly aware that without either of those pieces, his future after today may not have been part of the puzzle.

⚖

Doyoung has allowed himself to get sloppy. Not for the first time, he curses under his breath as a screw on his arm rig falls out of place before he can fasten it back in. The modification he’s been working on is meant to reduce kickback from his sniper rifle. It’s not the fanciest of upgrades, but it’s still more than the standard touch-ups he normally works on. He’d gotten so used to asking Donghyuck for help that he’d lost some of his touch. 

Which is something that needs fixing, fast, because he doesn’t dare show up at the shop now that he has concrete ties to the rebels. Taeil would kill him for bringing that kind of danger to the doorstep with Donghyuck present. If anything happened, Doyoung would never forgive  _ himself _ . He’ll just have to resign himself to this sparse room still too impersonal to fully call his quarters, and relearn the basics as quickly as he can. Doyoung refuses to go down because of something as preventable as a dislodged gear.

“Doyoung?” The voice that calls his name isn’t one he recognizes. A young man stands just outside the door, having widened the crack just enough to show his face. “Yuta is asking to talk to you.”

Doyoung snorts, his eyes immediately going back to the task at hand. “And he couldn’t tell me that himself?” If he can just get this one last screw in at the right angle…

“He’s been busy, you know, planning our next steps and━”

“Yeah, of course he is.” The screw tightens in place with a sense of finality. The pride Doyoung feels is a bit excessive, probably, but who’s going to stop him? “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Why Yuta feels the need to send errand boys when he wants to talk is beyond him. He thought by now they’d moved past that gray area of rebel leader and unknown outsider. After flexing his fingers one last time to test that his entire arm won’t be falling apart anytime soon, Doyoung brushes past the boy and heads in the direction of Yuta’s quarters. The route is not an unfamiliar one.

Outside Yuta’s door, a single guard is posted, which confirms that the other man is inside. As of late, the group as a whole has insisted on having someone on watch around the clock wherever he happens to be. The first few times Doyoung had sought Yuta out for less than professional purposes, he’d been uncomfortable at the extra witness. Now it hardly fazes him as he gives her a nod and lets himself inside.

Doyoung doesn’t hear the door finish closing. By the time it seals shut, he’s been shoved roughly against the wall with an arm pressed threateningly across his throat, not enough to cut off his breathing but more than enough to be a warning. Instinct almost makes Doyoung lash out in response until he registers the touch as metal and sees whose blazing eyes are filling his vision.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?” Yuta spits. He hasn’t looked this angry since the incident that started all of this.

Doyoung’s stomach drops. There’s no way he could know. “Find out about what?”

“Don’t play stupid.”

It hadn’t been a great strategy, but it was worth a shot. Someway, somehow, Yuta found out the one thing Doyoung wanted to keep from him. Resignation settles into Doyoung’s chest right next to the confusion.

“How?” he asks, all pretense dropped. “I never said a word to anyone, so you had to see. Which means…” His eyes narrow. “The vest had cameras. You bugged me?”

“All of it is, not just yours. Yours was meant to be  _ off _ . When I was running through the routine checks, I kept watching your footage because I realized I could see you take the shot. I could see that bastard die.” The arm against Doyoung’s throat presses minutely closer. “And then I saw the lights.”

A short while ago, the anger in Yuta’s expression would scare Doyoung. In a way, it still does. But his understanding of the man goes far deeper than fear can ever hope to go. “I didn’t tell you,” he says levelly, “because you already hate them enough. You didn’t need more ammunition for it.”

“You think my anger clouds my judgement. That I’m a powder keg ready to explode.”

“Yes.” Doyoung won’t lie to him about this. “And sometimes you do. Enough anger keeps you focused; too much of it makes you lash out before you think.”

“You’ve got me all figured out now, do you?” Yuta practically snarls. “I could kill you for this, for betraying me.”

“But you won’t.” Of this, Doyoung is absolutely certain. “No one else in the world understands you like I do, or will stand up to you as much as listen. No one else can take my place.”

For a long moment, Yuta silently glares at him. Then he draws back, clearly in pain, and Doyoung takes a single unobstructed breath before he’s asking, “What’s wrong?”

The way Yuta curls in on himself, remaining flesh fingers going white where they dig into his arms, is concerningly out of character. Even with his guard down as much as it can be around Doyoung, the rebel leader generally isn’t one to show weakness.

“Must have gotten behind on injections again,” Yuta tells him through gritted teeth. “Taeil’s not around anymore to keep me on that strict schedule of his.”

That’s news to Doyoung. He’d been avoiding the other man so intently, he hadn’t realized Taeil had up and left. “If you’re getting worse, isn’t that when he should be here the most?”

“Yeah, well.” Yuta’s shoulders jerk in an approximation of a shrug. “I don’t plan on needing them for much longer.”

Doyoung doesn’t have a response for that.

“Don’t do something like this again,” Yuta warns him. “I  _ need _ to be able to trust you.”

“I told you from the beginning that I never promised blind loyalty. You’ll get what I think is right. But you can always trust me.” He hopes the sincerity in those words come across. Expressing that kind of emotion has never really been Doyoung’s forte.

Yuta shakes his head in response, turning his back on Doyoung as another visible wave of pain overtakes him. “Just go,” he says tightly.

Still, Doyoung lingers for a few loaded moments longer. When he’s sure Yuta really isn’t going to say anything more, he turns and leaves. The base’s barren hallways have never felt so silent.

⚖

Inside the hover-transport, everything echoes. Even small sounds seem to hang in the air longer than they should before they’re absorbed into the walls, blending into the background hum of the road outside. That same hum is what pulls Mark’s eyelids a little lower, slows his breathing a heartbeat more, tempting him with the promise of sleep. But his anticipation counters that pull just enough to keep him from drifting off.

The journey should be over soon. Their final destination is in sight. Pamela had sent them off with food for the road and instructions on how to get smuggled into a nearby shipping center, where they were picked up by a hover-transport driver and brought on board. Never did Mark think he’d see one of these vehicles in person, considering how infrequently they were used by smaller settlements like the one he’d grown up in, much less end his Railroad passage inside of one.

Next to him, Jungwoo is on higher alert than his counterpart. He’s taking his semi-official role of watch seriously, which Mark appreciates almost as much as he does the air between them finally feeling cleared. Even if they may fundamentally disagree on some things, they can at least agree to disagree. And they won’t let it interfere with their last steps to safety or their rekindled friendship.

Mark thinks he can understand where Jungwoo is coming from, given what he’s shared of his experiences. There’s probably worse he hasn’t shared. Mark would never ask him to divulge more without reason, even groggy as the trip has made him, but he’ll admit there is something he’s still curious about.

“Jungwoo.” His voice fades so quickly into the background noise that he almost repeats himself, until Jungwoo looks up in acknowledgement. “I’ve been wondering...what happens to us ━ to fleshies ━ if we get caught? If the skinjackers take us in?”

“Nothing good. I know that much,” Jungwoo says mirthlessly before seeming to contemplate his answer. “There was a girl I knew who got out, one of the people who took me in. She never liked to talk about it for too long. The elites in Eluse who are rich enough to buy a smuggled fleshie are always the ones who dumped money into fancy upgrades and body modifications. Controlling someone,  _ hurting _ someone is harder when all of your enemies are modded to the teeth just like you. But someone with their original biology who can’t fight back...that’s easy.”

Mark feels nausea churn in his gut. “That’s all they want? Someone to hurt?”

“Someone to have power over. Eluse is always trying to pump out new neural inhibitors, but you don’t need tech to take away someone’s control. Humans are always imaginative with their capacity to be cruel.”

How sad, Mark thinks, that this is what they’ve come to. That this was the reality which clawed itself to the surface after a subset of the populace decided to give their moral compasses a spin and turn a blind eye to which direction the arrow was pointing. He almost wonders why he didn’t have Taeil amputate and replace a limb or two of his with metal to get it over with before he balks at the injustice of the thought. Why should he have to destroy himself to have a right to exist?

“But that won’t be us,” Jungwoo continues. He sounds like he’s reassuring himself as much as Mark. “We’ll get to this Harbor the Railroad has us all talking about, and we won’t have to worry about skinjackers or Eluse again.”

A thought passes Mark’s mind, throwing a shadow over that pretty picture. “What about the fleshies that never get to Harbor? Who never find the Railroad in the first place?” He’s not guilty about making it. Not exactly. But it’s sobering to think that for every pair like them that passes the finish line, there has to be another pair hiding, or captured, or dead.

“There are people who say things like that about the Railroad, you know,” Jungwoo tells him. “They ask what the point is of saving a handful of fleshies when nothing will fundamentally change. There are rebels who debate about the best way to bring the system itself crashing down. And there are people like Taeyong and Johnny who think that even the smallest rescue to save one person is worth everything.”

Mark considers this for a moment. “I mean, I don’t think any of them are wrong,” he decides.

“I don’t disagree. The problem is that too many people either benefit from the system or stand by and do nothing, even if they don’t agree. If they━” Jungwoo cuts himself off, sitting up straight. “We’re stopping.”

Mark doesn’t need to be told twice before he squeezes with Jungwoo into a large crate and pulls a heavy quilt over their hiding spot before pulling the lid shut. They’d known since the start of the ride that the second time they stopped would mean freedom. The first stop would be an inspection as they passed one last checkpoint heading away from Eluse’s jurisdiction. As long as they’re still and silent, the driver had assured them, this would go off without a hitch.

The hover-transport comes to a full stop. Mark hears murmured voices filter in through the walls, followed by the cranking of gears as the back of the transport is opened up. He stretches an arm out within the cramped crate to prevent it from falling asleep and instead meets with the side of Jungwoo’s face, whose warning hand clamped across Mark’s mouth stops the reflexive apology from escaping.

Footsteps and more murmured voices draw closer to their hiding place. Mark wishes his heart would stop beating so loud for fear that the inspectors on board will somehow hear it fluttering away like some frightened animal inside his chest. Even with the driver’s assurances, he hates not being able to do anything beyond sit and cross his fingers. If the crate is opened and they’re discovered…

But Mark doesn’t need to finish that spiraling line of thought, because the footsteps retreat and the transport’s back closes. He still refuses to make a sound as the engines flare back to life, not until Jungwoo lifts the crate’s lid off himself and returns to the spot he’d been sitting in before the inspection.

Even then, Mark doesn’t go far. He sits at Jungwoo’s side, feeling much more secure with less distance between them. Time is the only remedy that finally slows his heartbeat to a pace that allows the earlier lull to set in once again, pulling him closer toward sleep despite his lingering apprehension.

“Sleep,” Jungwoo insists, patting his own shoulder as an invitation. “You’ve been wanting to since we got on. I’ll keep watch.”

Mark knows him well enough to recognize the words not as empty platitudes but as an inevitable truth. He doesn’t think Jungwoo could let his guard down in a situation like this even if he wanted to. That certainty is what allows him to let go of the final threads of resistance he’d been clinging to, settling onto Jungwoo’s bony shoulder with a longing almost optimistic enough to be called hope.

-

When Mark is jolted out of his sleep, it feels like mere minutes have passed. A combination of the hover-transport slowing to a stop and Jungwoo patting him awake quickly rouses him from the depths of whatever dream his mind had begun to conjure up. “Are we here?” he asks, almost afraid to acknowledge the feeling blossoming in his chest.

“We should be.” Jungwoo sounds much the same.

It’s all down to this, Mark thinks as the back of the hover-transport begins to open. Their final stop. Their last moment of truth. Minimally armed and in unfamiliar territory, they likely won’t have a fighting chance if they’ve been set up. As he and Jungwoo rise to their feet, tensed, Mark shuts his eyes and sends a silent wish to the universe that he hasn’t been foolish to hope.

“Looks like we have a new delivery,” a new voice says in the silence.

Mark hadn’t realized the back of the transport was finished rolling up. He opens his eyes to see a crowd of unfamiliar faces looking up at him from outside the vehicle.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now,” the same voice says, a woman at the front with scars on her face and braids running down her back. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Harbor.” And to Mark’s surprise, the others gathered behind her break into raucous applause.

He stares at the unexpected display, bewildered, until Jungwoo gives his arm a squeeze and snaps him out of it. “Come on, Mark,” Jungwoo tells him, no longer trying to hide his excitement. “Let’s go take the tour.”

His smile is infectious. Mark feels it turn up the corners of his own lips, taking his first few newly-freed steps forward. At last, they have something to look forward to beyond surviving one day to the next. Their futures can be whatever they want to make of them, without the compromise of hypervigilance or solitude.

At last, they have a choice.

⚖

The eve of their final plan is upon them. Yuta has been preparing for a long time now, imagined how he’d feel when it finally came. He finds his current canvas of thoughts and feelings rather...mixed, as he wanders the base and allows himself a few rare moments of sentimentality.

He’ll feel a sense of relief if all goes to plan, but getting into a position to pull any of it off has taken so much hard work that it’s strange to think about reaching the end. He won’t miss this. It’s impossible to want to remain stewing in a simmering pot of injustice and inaction and anger. Yet there’s a fundamental human flaw that makes him unreasonably anxious as he draws nearer to the finish.

Still, his purpose is no less clear to him than when it had crystalized after that horrible day years ago. Yuta refuses to let his instincts cast any doubt upon that single-minded goal. There’s only one thing he’s not at peace with as of now. Or rather, one person. Someone who, if his hunch is correct, he’ll also find wide awake at this late hour. He raps quietly on the door of Doyoung’s quarters and hopes his gut hasn’t led him wrong.

Yuta doesn’t have to wonder for too long. The door slides open after the third knock, revealing sharp eyes and tense shoulders that clearly haven’t slept a wink. Not surprising. Though Yuta hasn’t gone over the finer details with him, Doyoung still knows tomorrow is a big day. Even back in what Yuta supposes were the good old days, Doyoung never slept well before important operations. One night short on sleep could focus him and stave off nerves; more than that would reduce him to mediocre backup. There’s a reason Yuta spent today giving him only the big picture of what they’d be doing.

He takes a seat on Doyoung’s still-made bed, though the other man doesn’t join him, still pacing the room like he must have been doing before Yuta knocked. Ironic with how still and silent Doyoung is out in the field that he gets this antsy when he’s restless.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Doyoung asks him. He skips past questioning what Yuta is doing here, which Yuta isn't sure to take as the other man not caring for his motivations or Yuta himself being that transparent. He supposes it doesn’t matter, in the scheme of things.

“I shouldn’t be as much as I am. We’ve prepared for this since the beginning, run through variation after variation of our strategy. Human nature is keeping me worrying about it anyway.” He makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Guess I still don’t have enough metal in me yet to lose my human perks.”

“Please, you still have most of your face and half of one leg. You’re years away from going full tin man, more if you get better aim.”

“Very funny. Luckily no one will have to see that for the same reason my brain won’t shut off on me tonight. I fully expect not to make it out of tomorrow alive.”

The admission isn’t a new one. He’s made it clear that the rebellion’s final strike always ends with him in the center of the flames. There’s something to be said, however, about how the words hit differently when it’s less a matter of “someday” and more of a concrete “tomorrow”.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Doyoung says quietly.

The words are firm, but it’s the visible _ caring  _ in Doyoung’s expression that softens something in Yuta’s chest. There are so many blind eyes and turned backs he’s been shouting at for so long that seeing this kind of emotion even after they’ve fought, after Yuta threatened to  _ kill him _ , affects him deeply. And he knows with certainty that it’s time to get the words off his chest that have been lingering there for too long already.

“I’m sorry,” Yuta apologizes, gaze dropping to his own hands. “You’re the last person I want to be angry with, and I went too far. It won’t happen again.”

“Good.” Forgiving. Final. There won’t be a third chance, and Yuta doesn’t intend on needing one.

“Doyoung, I don’t think…” He trails off as he tries to find the right words. “You know I’m not good with speeches, unless it’s some kind of rally against shitty regimes. But I wanted to thank you for taking a chance on me. For staying.”

It feels awkward to voice that kind of sentiment when they’ve never been prone to excessive expressions of the heart. Yuta just can’t leave this unsaid. “Things have been much clearer since you came back into my life,” he admits. “I honestly thought I’d lost my ability to feel with these implants, but you made me second-guess myself. And you challenged me, which I needed even if it was sometimes frustrating as hell.”

Yuta looks up when he feels the spot next to him dip, meeting that same searching expression that he often feels can see straight through his soul. “Is that a confession?” Doyoung finally asks him, goading.

Yuta’s lips twitch in a half-smile. “It’s the closest to one you’re going to get.”

“Fine by me. I’ve never been a fan of confessions anyway,” Doyoung tells him, and he leans in to kiss Yuta long and deep.

Yuta won’t lie. While he hadn’t come searching for the other man with ulterior motives, a part of him had hoped for the distraction. Doyoung’s touch is an even better tool than his words to take Yuta’s thoughts away from maps and diagrams and what-if-this-all-goes-up-in-smoke and━

The grip in Yuta’s hair becomes rather sharp. His mind had been drifting elsewhere far too obviously.

“Tomorrow,” Doyoung says lowly in his ear, “we’ll bring Eluse to its knees. But tonight? You’re focusing on me.” The warning is clear.

“When did you get so direct?”

Doyoung pulls back to raise an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “If you think that’s new, you clearly haven’t been paying attention.”

“I am now.” Even if he wanted to, Yuta doesn’t think he’d be able to look away. If Doyoung demanded it, he thinks he might stop breathing altogether.

Doyoung’s smile is as pleased as it is wicked. He traces a finger along the metal seam of Yuta’s jaw, who resists the urge to shiver. “If I was more into clichés,” he says, “I think this is where I’d tell you to prove it.”

Yuta has never been one to turn down a challenge.

⚖

The Railroad headquarters is bustling today, filled with voices and new fleshies adjusting to their temporary home. Or maybe it’s dead silent. The conditions up above the surface are clear, and their two outstanding pickups are going surprisingly well. Or else it’s storming and both his runners are struggling. For this fleeting, selfish handful of hours he’s carved out for himself, Taeyong doesn’t care.

As he and Johnny brainstorm for their new set of initiatives to better protect their routes, Taeyong’s real focus is on somehow being reunited with the other half he fully believed he’d never see again. For all the pride he’d swallowed and risks he’d taken to get to that facility, Taeyong had been so sure that it would all be for naught. That he and Johnny’s last words to each other would end up being a rushed goodbye on the tail end of an almost-argument about a fleshie who’d seen too much and drawn the wrong conclusions.

Having him back is a miracle in itself. Soon, Taeyong will return his full focus to the greater good it should always be centered on. But today, when Johnny isn’t looking, Taeyong allows himself to stare.

Johnny is in the middle of suggesting increased border patrols when a red light on the intercom turns on with a loud buzz, startling Taeyong out of his thoughts enough to scatter the few papers he’s holding. There’s someone at the entrance.

“I can get these back in order,” Taeyong tells Johnny when the other man tries to help. “Answer that and make sure it’s not a problem.”

Maybe Taeyong has jinxed things by losing focus. Maybe they’d somehow been followed back after Johnny’s rescue and scoped out. Maybe Jaehyun hadn’t been as truthful as Johnny hoped and he’d decided to save his own skin.

“ _ It’s me. Doyoung _ ,” a voice comes out of the intercom, and Taeyong could sink to the floor with the weight of his relief. “ _ Taeyong, if that’s you...I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but can you let me in and hear me out? _ ”

“It’s both of us, actually,” Johnny says, eyes sliding to Taeyong in question. “I didn’t realize you still remembered how to find this place.”

“ _ Just because I don’t send Christmas cards doesn’t mean I don’t remember. Now can you ask your husband nicely to please let me in? I’m not here to pick fights. _ ”

When was the last time Doyoung had been here, Taeyong wonders? They’ve hardly spoken since the incident, and the few times they have never seem to go the way Taeyong plans. Doyoung is so tightly woven into their shared past, so strongly associated with the emotional highs and lows across a good portion of Taeyong’s life, that coming face to face makes Taeyong feel like his control is thrown over the edge of a cliff before he has a chance to speak his heart. His words never seem to come out how he wants them to.

But maybe this time, not so disjointed from the wounds of their last argument, can be different. “I’ll hold you to that,” Taeyong says, loud enough for the intercom to pick up. “Johnny will come let you in. I also reserve the right to make him throw you out.”

“ _ I’d expect nothing less _ .”

-

Johnny drops Doyoung off in the same room he and Taeyong had been planning in, quickly excusing himself to give the two of them privacy. “I’ll make sure no one comes looking for you,” he says. “I’ll be with Jaehyun in the kitchen if you need me.”

The door closes behind him, which Doyoung turns away from with curiosity in his eyes. “Do I know a Jaehyun?” he asks.

“Johnny knew him a while ago, before he got taken in by Eluse. This is probably the safest place for him to be now.”

“Eluse...so he still has connections inside the city?”

“Probably, yes, but━” He pauses when he sees the calculating look on Doyoung’s face, how his eyes suddenly light up. “Don’t pull him into anything. Johnny just got his friend back.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

That’s a poor evasive answer, and they both know it. Taeyong decides to make a change and let it slide. “Listen,” he says instead, “Sorry for being so snippy with you before. I only said the things I did because I wanted to protect you, but obviously it didn't come across like I planned.”

“I understand. It’s not all on you.” Doyoung adjusts his position so he’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed. “You need to see where I’m coming from, though, Taeyong. There’s so much of our past that I want to cut myself off from. After I finished killing the people responsible for what happened, that’s what I fully intended to do.”

Taeyong couldn’t name the feeling creeping down his spine if he tried. “And did you? Kill them?”

“Every single one.” Not a trace of remorse in Doyoung’s words. “But then I reconnected with Yuta and realized that kind of anchor to the person I used to be was what I needed. A bridge between the past and the present that kept me from feeling like I was losing who I was and what I was living for. I’m closer to finding my place than I’ve ever been.”

Taeyong is happy for him, truly, even if he can never fully understand. Even if he can never overlook the actions of the third member of their trio that Doyoung knows about and has still given his heart to regardless. He has to choose his battles, and a repeat of their earlier match is not one he’s keen on choosing. “You deserve to be happy,” he says, because that’s the truth.

“I’m trying.” Then Doyoung asks a question Taeyong hadn’t been expecting. “Did a kid named Mark ever make it here? Did you get him to safety?”

That’s right. The fleshie who’d sown seeds of doubt in Taeyong’s chest  _ had _ mentioned Doyoung’s name in a conversation Taeyong happened to overhear. Taeyong hadn’t given the connection much thought after how quickly things had spiraled out of control.

“Mark made it here,” he confirms. “Did his best to make me feel like I was a fraud, though I can’t blame him for being suspicious. He and another fleshie were with Johnny when he was captured by Eluse for a few days.”

Doyoung’s face pales. “Then…?”

“No, they made it back to Taeil’s and contacted me. I sent them on a different route.” He twists his fingers together. “Even without a runner along, they should have made it. Mark should be safe.” He can’t shake the guilt that settles over him at the thought of those two alone. Did he make the right choice? Should he have called them back, despite the risks?

“He reminded me so much of Jeno, you know,” Doyoung says with more of a forced breath than a laugh. “I think that’s why I felt so attached. Sometimes I wonder if I could have done more to help this kid than...than before.”

Taeyong averts his eyes. “Maybe we both could have done more for him.”

The thought sits heavy between them. For some time, Doyoung doesn’t speak. Then, carefully, he says, “Something big is happening with the rebels. I can’t say too much, but I might not make it out alive. That’s why I came. To clear the air and say goodbye in case there isn’t another chance.”

Taeyong hopes it doesn’t show when his heart drops to his feet. He’d known this would come, eventually. He just didn’t think it would be so soon. “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of it? Or him?”

“There’s no turning back for either of us now.”

It was worth a try, Taeyong thinks. He shoves aside the despair that tries to creep to the forefront of his mind. Yes, he’s upset. No, he’s sure he’ll never agree with whatever Yuta has planned. But even so, “I’ll hold my runners from anything outside headquarters tomorrow. The Railroad won’t help you, but we won’t interfere.”

“That’s all I ask.”

The two of them have never been the most physical of people around each other. Their mutual comfort over the course of their friendship had never been primarily based in touch. That doesn’t stop Taeyong from embracing Doyoung fiercely before he leaves.

“I’ll go find Johnny and see myself out,” Doyoung says when they separate. His expression is open, trusting. Like all these years had never passed. “Thank you.”

He disappears from view, and Taeyong tries not to tell himself that it’s probably for the last time.


	5. Chapter 5

There’s a storm coming, one that has nothing to do with the weather. Doyoung feels its building energy as he walks beside the eye of the storm into a gray morning that has no idea of what’s to come.

Yuta, at the forefront of their small army, is every bit the fearsome leader the stories make him out to be. There’s thunder in his eyes and lightning running through his veins that threatens to decimate anything that stands in the way of their march. Doyoung can think of no place he’d rather be, now that he’s seen the rebel leader in his element.

The last settlement they march through on their way to Eluse gives them little resistance, the same as the others before it. They make too fearsome of a sight for any civilians to seriously consider challenging their progress. The few peacekeepers who do are swiftly dealt with. Doyoung is well aware the ease won’t last forever, especially as they draw nearer to the city. If a warning hasn’t gotten out by the time they show up on the fringes, any perimeter security will certainly raise city-wide alarms and begin the real challenge.

At the edge of the village, the rebel ranks draw closer together to narrow their lines. This exit will funnel them through a valley path that shortcuts to the more Eluse-controlled settlements, which will save them valuable time that they can’t afford to lose.

Or, it would, had the reinforced exit gate not finished drawing shut moments before they arrived in the clearing to pass through, halting their advance. More peacekeepers, Doyoung thinks as he reaches for his rifle, but no sooner has the thought crossed his mind than Yuta demands, “You’d better have a good excuse for this, Moon!”

“I can’t in good conscience let you through!” Taeil’s voice calls back, and Doyoung finally spots him up in the gate control tower. He looks nervous even from this far away, but his words are firm. How had he known to intercept them here? Why was he turning on them now? Doyoung feels his stomach turn with something far too close to dread.

“I won’t let anyone stand in my way!” Yuta threatens. “Even if I once trusted them with my life!”

“You can do your worst!”

Doyoung sees Yuta’s hand raising in a forward signal, already prepared to storm the tower. He jumps on the opportunity while one still exists. “Let me go talk to him,” he says in a sharp murmur to Yuta. “He’ll have barricaded himself in. Persuasion will be faster than forcing our way through.”

“Fine. Make it fast,” Yuta allows, still seething. Doyoung steps forward before he changes his mind.

“Taeil, I’m coming up!” he calls. “I just want to talk!”

“Then you’d better come unarmed!”

It’s almost impressive how the other man thinks he’s in a position to make demands when he’d last a few minutes at most against an onslaught. Doyoung can admire his resolve despite its foolishness. (Despite their last conversation being an argument that had done damage on both sides.)

As he shoves his rifle into Yuta’s arms and lets himself into the tower’s base, Doyoung tries to run through possible scenarios in his head for how this might go down. Priority one is getting the rebels through that gate. He’s come too far not to see the mission through, and Yuta will make it to his goal regardless, even if that means cutting Taeil down to override the controls or bringing down this side of the valley with explosives. Priority two is doing what Doyoung can to talk Taeil out of being self-righteous and hopefully get him through the day alive. What could have happened to suddenly change his mind? Taeil certainly had no qualms about keeping Yuta alive for who knows how long.

Doyoung knocks twice on the door. The lack of traps on the way up was a welcome surprise, he’ll admit. It also means that if this single barricaded door is the only thing standing between Taeil and the rebels, he had less of a chance for survival than Doyoung initially thought. When the commotion behind the door ceases and it finally opens, he doesn’t waste a moment before giving the other man a piece of his mind.

“Taeil, what the  _ hell _ . They’ll kill you without a second thought. How did you even find us?”

Taeil doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “There were...I put a tracker in his last set of injections. For insurance. It wasn’t right, but I knew I couldn’t trust him any longer.”

Doyoung doesn’t have the time to even touch the moral and ethical implications of what the other man has done. He still isn’t over the sheer stupidity of what Taeil had tried to accomplish here, and for what? “If I hadn’t stepped in━”

“Donghyuck is still there.”

“What?”

“Donghyuck is still inside the capital,” Taeil repeats. “I told him not to make a special trip for the parts he needed, but you know Donghyuck. He didn’t listen. I won’t let Yuta and his thugs ━ and you ━ raze Eluse to the ground while he’s still inside.”

And fuck, of  _ course _ it’s something like this. What is Doyoung supposed to say? That he doesn’t care about the life of the boy who’d made him laugh and want to tear out his hair in equal amounts for as long as he’d known him? Donghyuck had been just as close to him as the little brother he’d lost. Doyoung won’t do the disservice to himself of pretending like he wouldn’t put one life ahead of some greater vision. He’d do it every time.

“Listen,” he tells Taeil. “You have my word that once we’re inside the city, I’ll find him and get him out before anything else. As long as you let us pass.”

Taeil looks at him for an uncomfortably long moment. “Tell him to meet me outside Iotelle. I’ve been saving up to buy one of the decommissioned hover-transports there, in case things got bad.”

“I will.”

Still, Taeil doesn’t turn back to the controls. “Doyoung, you have to swear to me. Even if you’re one of them now━”

“I already gave you my word. That’s insulting you wouldn’t consider it enough.” It gets under Doyoung’s skin, how Taeil’s looking at him like he’s seeing a stranger. Like Doyoung is somehow a different person than he’d grown to know. Rich, coming from the man who’d been going behind Doyoung’s back with no problem, and it’s not as if Doyoung has suddenly transformed overnight. He’s simply found a different outlet for what had already been inside. Just once, it wouldn’t hurt someone to be happy for him, would it?

Taeil doesn’t offer him an apology or press the issue. He returns to the controls with an unspoken agreement, so Doyoung leaves with an unspoken final goodbye. Losing a friend should hurt more than it does. Maybe some part of him thinks he’s reading too much into things when emotions are running high. Maybe he’d already processed the fracture the moment he’d run into Taeil at the base. Whatever the case, Doyoung now has another promise to honor. He can only imagine Yuta’s reaction if he knew Doyoung had willingly put another obstacle in his path. Luckily for both of them, Yuta doesn’t need to know.

He returns to the rebels just as the gate is finishing being raised. “The problem’s been dealt with,” he says simply, and Yuta takes him at his word, though he waits a moment longer before pressing forward.

“The rest of the day won’t be without casualties,” he warns.

“I’m prepared for that.” He had been since the moment he cut the strings to his old life and picked a side. Hasty of a decision as it might have seemed, Doyoung was well aware of what he was getting into. He knew there would be no going back, damn the consequences.

Their march continues with minimal interruptions, save for the scattered appearances of Eluse-backed opposition that tries and fails to stop the encroaching flames licking ever closer to the city gates. Surely by now they must have drawn enough attention for someone to take notice of the threat.

Yuta must agree with him, because he stops the rebels’ march of his own accord near the edge of the last village, instructing a handful of them to keep an eye on their flank. He scales the tallest building they can find with Doyoung at his back, turning a pair of electronic lenses toward the capital’s perimeter in the distance while the latter looks down his rifle’s scope. Finally, Doyoung gets the chance to try out the new lens he’d been tinkering on for many long nights.

“I see four by the entrance and three on the upper walls,” Yuta counts. “You?”

“Five on the walls. One leaning over the back and one manning some kind of turret.”

“Turret? Where…? Shit.”

Doyoung shares the sentiment entirely. They won’t be hard to see coming, and a weapon with that kind of firing rate and range could mow half of them down before they’re within striking distance from the gates. If only Doyoung was close enough to take the shot from here…

Yuta lets out a breath. “Might be time to start the next phase a little prematurely.” He clips the binoculars back onto his belt in exchange for inputting a number into his commlink, which quickly lights up with a holographic face that Doyoung had very recently become acquainted with. “Jaehyun.”

“ _ Yuta. Is it time already? There’s a lot less panic than I was expecting _ .”

“Not yet. Plans have changed. If you’re in position, I need you to power down the turret above the southeast gate.”

Jaehyun’s eyes drift away from Yuta like he’s looking at a nearby screen. “ _ Found it _ ,” he confirms. “ _ But I should warn you: if I do this, you’ll have even less time to get to the gates. Even though my former colleagues let me back into the building since they don’t know I was involved with Johnny’s breakout...they’ll eventually trace any interference to my location. And I’m no use dead.” _

“Then we’ll just have to make enough noise of our own that they don’t come looking,” Yuta tells him firmly, mind already made up.

In what is admittedly not his finest moment, Doyoung silently congratulates himself for recruiting the man who’s turned out to be an essential asset to their plan, rather than focusing on the imminent danger that will soon be coming said asset’s way. Taeyong might kill him for the recruitment, if he finds out. But then again, if things go south, Doyoung might die today regardless. For now, he’ll enjoy having Jaehyun as their more than willing man on the inside.

“Shut that turret down as quickly as you can,” Yuta instructs. He’s already starting to scale back down the building as he says it.

“ _ On it. Get here as fast as you can _ .”

“I’ll be in touch.”

The call ends. Doyoung’s feet hit the ground seconds after Yuta’s own, his heart starting to pump in earnest now that the path ahead of them has never had so much clarity or felt so real. This is it.

“See you on the other side,” Doyoung tells the other man, compelled to say  _ something _ to mark this final moment before their storm lets its full power loose. And Yuta, just this once, just for a moment, breaks his own protocol to pull Doyoung in for a kiss that’s as brief as it is blazing, drinking him in like a man parched while the hot-cold of flesh and metal plays across Doyoung’s lips.

“For Jeno and all the others. Let’s give them hell,” Yuta says, just for the two of them. His pupils are blown wide with an emotion caught somewhere between lust and righteous anger. Doyoung thinks that he might follow him to the end of the world and beyond, if Yuta asked. He’s never felt so invincible.

The rebels are halfway across the wasteland between the village and the city gates before they’re spotted. Gunshots echo up ahead, which Yuta takes as his cue to shout for a full-on charge. They surge forward with a cacophony of yells and bullets, still with Yuta at their head. Doyoung himself falls back behind the front lines so he can line up his shots for the patrolling peacekeepers on the upper wall, but he still feels the same wild abandon flow through him that flows through the others, threatening to pull him under if he doesn’t keep one foot firmly planted on the ground. Such wildness is addictive and dangerous and the exact buzz he needs to keep his senses focused laser-sharp on each pull of the trigger.

One shot, however, Doyoung misses. The peacekeeper who’d been leaning over the wall earlier escapes Doyoung’s bullet by a hair and makes it to one of the gatehouses, flailing arms and abandoned gun making his intentions clear.

“Yuta!” Doyoung shouts over the noise. “They’re about to call for reinforcements!”

By luck or by purposeful design, the rebel leader is close enough to be within earshot. He hits a circular remote clipped onto the wrist strap with his commlink, and Doyoung hears a brief ringing in his ears before it fades into the background. Hopefully that means Taeyong’s short-range blockers are working as well as he’d promised.

“I’ve bought us some time!” Yuta has to push through a few of the rebels to make it to Doyoung, their recognition of him clouded by the fog of battle. “As soon as they figure out what’s going on, it’ll be chaos.”

“I’m right behind you.” Then Doyoung remembers. “But there’s something I have to do first, before the fighting escalates.”

Yuta looks ready to protest before he thinks better of it. “Be quick. I’ll ping you a rendezvous point once I can shut the blockers down.”

“You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

As Yuta turns his attention back to the task at hand, Doyoung rushes through the opening the rebels have made straight through the city’s front door. He reaches the threshold as the last peacekeeper falls and doesn’t stop running until he sees crowds. Even then, he does his best to blend into the shadows and go as fast as he can without being questioned.

What a surreal experience it is, to be surrounded by ordinary people living their ordinary lives when Armageddon is on their doorstep. Doyoung would almost feel sympathy for them if they weren’t collectively a group of slave-traders who turned a blind eye to everyone else’s suffering. (He’s beginning to sound like Yuta, isn’t he?)

Doyoung has only been inside Eluse a few times, and even those had been short visits. The risks of being identified as a known threat had generally outweighed the possibility of good supplies. Much more trial and error than he’d like is involved with locating the central market , where Donghyuck had better still be if he wants any kind of timely rescue. The kid has no idea what kind of mistake he’s made in disobeying Taeil’s instructions today, and won’t until━

Screams. Doyoung hears them before he hears the gunfire, sees the smoke rising back where he’d come from. The assault is almost here, which on one hand is what Doyoung is fighting for but is also terrible, terrible timing. Crowds are starting to flee from the scene, rebels are appearing on the fringes from other more direct routes, and if Doyoung doesn’t get a move on━

“You there!”

Doyoung turns with his hands raised, immediately cursing himself for not reaching for his gun instead. Two peacekeepers have broken off from the rest of the pack to box him in, which Doyoung really doesn’t have the time for. “I’m just looking for my little cousin. I don’t want trouble.”

“Right. Because the giant gun strapped to your back and the dirt caked in your clothes definitely isn’t━ _ unh! _ ”

The pistol at Doyoung’s hip smokes with the aftermath of its bullet’s release. Doyoung fires a second shot between the other man’s eyes before he can register his fallen comrade, all traces of pretense forgotten. He and Yuta are very similar in that respect, Doyoung thinks. Once they’ve committed to something, they’ll allow nothing to stand in their way.

The market is in flames. Doyoung continues to wade through the chaos with his gun cocked and a growing sense of dread. “Donghyuck!” he calls loudly enough to be audible above the screams and shots. “Donghyuck, it’s me!”

The only ones to answer his first attempt are another pair of peacekeepers, who Doyoung eliminates with hardly a second glance. Then on his next attempt of “Donghyuck!” he hears a faint voice call back, “Doyoung?”

Doyoung stops immediately. He turns toward the source of the sound, and sees a figure step out from behind one of the still-standing market stalls, shaking and terrified but very much alive.

“Doyoung?” Donghyuck repeats warily. “Is that really…? I didn’t recognize you.” His eyes flicker between Doyoung’s gun and the still-warm bodies crumpled on the ground. With an unpleasant sinking sensation in his stomach, Doyoung realizes Donghyuck’s fear isn’t limited to the burning city around them. The boy who’d looked up to him and still found new ways to prod at every chink on his armor was afraid of  _ him _ .

_ What’s done is done _ , Doyoung reminds himself. He has other priorities than mourning what’s been lost. “Taeil sent me to come get you out,” Doyoung tells him, and Donghyuck’s eyes narrow to a much more familiar expression.

“I can get myself out just fine, thanks.”

“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with here, Donghyuck. This is an active warzone. People are going to die, including you if you don’t let me help. Yuta won’t spare you if he thinks there’s a chance you’ll try to stop him.”

Donghyuck looks at him with that gaze of his that’s too perceptive for his own good. “You know his name. You’re with them? You’re helping them destroy everything, kill all these people?”

“What did I tell you about asking questions you don’t want to know the answers to?”

After that, Donghyuck stops protesting, though he resolutely won’t meet Doyoung’s eyes. Doyoung pretends it doesn’t sting as he leads them in the opposite direction of the rebels’ march, sacrificing efficiency for back roads so that he doesn’t have to shoot another peacekeeper with Donghyuck watching. Once he deems the sounds of fighting at a great enough distance away, he stops.

“Take these,” he tells Donghyuck, pressing his grappling hook and a single flashbang grenade into the other’s hands. “You remember when I taught you to climb with one of these, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but━”

“Get over this wall, repel down the other side, and run due west toward Iotelle until you find Taeil by the shipyard. Anyone gives you trouble, the grenade will cover your escape. Got it?”

Donghyuck still looks rightfully shaken, though he puffs his chest up in a clear attempt at bolstering his own confidence. “I’d like to see them try and stop me.”

This...is something Doyoung will miss. Yet again, it’s a goodbye that feels all too permanent.

“And Doyoung? I don’t know what you’re up to, and I probably don’t agree, but still. Good luck.”

Doyoung refuses to get emotional now. Not with a rebellion to see through and a rapidly closing window for Donghyuck to get to safety. He settles instead for a firm hand on the other’s shoulder that he hopes can convey at least a part of the speech he can’t bring himself to say.

“Thanks, kid.”

⚖

Yuta has been picturing this day for what seems like a lifetime. And now that it’s finally upon him, now that he’s standing in the thick of it with ash on his tongue and gunpowder in his hair...the chaos is everything he dreamed it would be.

With every step forward they take, the crown slips a little further off the capital’s swollen head. The ground beneath his feet cries out for change, lapping greedily at the fresh blood he and his rebels have spilled on its surface. Above him, the sky still hangs low and gray, as though hiding the rising flames from view of the heavens above. Yuta dares whatever may be watching to judge him. He welcomes it. This rotten world is in need of a savior, and he’s willing to fill that role no matter the cost. His own conscience is clear.

Yuta’s commlink lights up blue, indicating an incoming call. He’s unsurprised to see Doyoung’s hologram on the other side when he answers. “ _ I’m almost to your location. Just past the old church, right? _ ”

“That’s the place. This sector is ours, as soon as we cut down their final line of defense. Find what you were looking for?”

“ _ It’s no longer a problem. I’ll see you soon.” _

Doyoung ends the call in time for Yuta to spot a peacekeeper trying to get the jump on them, blasting her backwards before she can get the opportunity. The shotgun he’d taken off a different peacekeeper isn’t the most elegant of weapons, but it’s served its purpose well. Yuta intends to make use of it down to its very last stolen shell.

The last few peacekeepers don’t go down easy. A group of them are doing their best to flank the rebels and lure them into clearings with minimal cover, upping their losses to numbers that Yuta is far from comfortable with. He needs as many people as he can for the next phase of his plan, because the battles will only grow more taxing the further they make it into the heart of the city. The oligarchs sitting privileged and apathetic behind their golden walls will do everything in their power to stop them.

“They’re retreating!” one rebel calls. Yuta looks up at where they’d been taking fire from, thinking he’s misheard, but finds the area strangely quiet. That isn’t a good sign. None of the peacekeepers had shown any sign of surrendering before, which means…

“Heads up and guns ready!” Yuta yells. “Be prepared for━!”

An ambush, he’s about to say, but he doesn’t get to finish. Suddenly peacekeepers are rushing at them from all directions, forcing a small group to be split off from the rest with Yuta at its center. He tries to maneuver them behind cover, but cover is nearly nonexistent when their enemy could be firing from any possible angle. Instead, Yuta focuses on gunning down as many of the bastards as he can.

He’s come too far now to be stopped this close from his goal. He will not let death take him quietly.

A weight presses into Yuta’s back, so sudden that he jumps and misses a shot that was admittedly already going wide. “Looked like you could use some help.” Doyoung says to him, and Yuta feels the flame in his chest blaze as brightly as the ones surrounding them.

“I thought you’d never make it.”

“Let’s save the banter for after they’re all dead.”

Back-to-back, they work to take down the rest of the circle. Yuta feels each of Doyoung’s shots like they’re his own, filling in the spaces between shotgun blasts with staccato embellishments until Yuta’s borrowed weapon runs out of shells. He switches back to his own gun in time for them to sync up their shots, reapers in the shape of mere humans.

In the battle’s aftermath, Yuta doesn’t waste time on either celebration or tallying their losses. The people he’s left with are all he’s got, and they’re working on multiple deadlines. Last he’d checked, Jaehyun was still flying under the radar, but that could quickly change. “Everyone, form up and collect what ammo you can from those who didn’t make it!” Yuta commands. “We move on my signal!”

When he turns back to Doyoung, the other man is looking at him with his arms crossed. “Are you still keeping me in suspense, or do I finally get to hear the details of your plan?”

“I didn’t tell you because there were a hundred variations, depending what did or didn’t go wrong,” Yuta defends himself. “Remember those control units I asked you to plant on the outside of the walls as a favor?”

Realization clicks in Doyoung’s eyes. “That’s how we’re getting past the inner doors.”

“The rest of the rebels will cause a distraction while we head into the main control station. You know what happens next.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

A good question if there ever was one. His rebels look ready to move out, and there’s no time like the present. The response Yuta gets from Jaehyun on his comm is nearly immediate. “ _ You’re cutting it close. I think they might be catching on to me. _ ”

“Well, they’re about to be otherwise occupied. I need you to ping me the ID codes of the two doors we talked about.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “ _ Done. I shut down the rest of the turrets I could reach, and I just gave you access to the rest of it. You have maybe a minute _ .”

“I hope you have a flashlight.” Yuta inputs both of the doors’ identifiers into the software uploaded to his commlink, indulging in one self-satisfied grin when he sees the other controls suddenly available.

“On my mark, rush through the doors at the end of the street toward the temple!” Yuta calls to the rebels. His fingers hover a hair’s breadth above the display. “And...now!”

Adrenaline spikes in Yuta’s veins as he gets to work. He opens the gates as his army thunders past, Doyoung pulling him back so that he’s not inadvertently trampled. The cameras in their vicinity are the next to go, followed by the lights, which throws a sudden shadow over the area that hadn’t been there before.

“They’re blind,” Yuta says to an expectant Doyoung. “Let’s go.”

Beyond the crackling of nearby flames, Yuta can hear gunfire start up again. A chill runs through him, not from fear but from anticipation. Every step he’s taken so far has brought him closer to his destiny, but these...these truly are the final steps. On the other side of those doors, the people he’s recruited, trained, and fought with side by side will face opposition like they’ve never faced before. Victory may very well be impossible. But what Yuta needs from them isn’t necessarily victory, not right now; he just needs a little time.

Instead of the large gate the rebels had streamed through, Yuta and Doyoung enter the inner city through something more akin to a maintenance door, protected by only a single easily-dispatched peacekeeper on the other side. They veer away from the sounds of battle and instead locate an access hatch outside what looks like just another government building. Yuta knows better.

One more command on his commlink and they’re climbing down a ladder to one of Eluse’s central control stations. Even if the city detects a rogue takeover of their security, even if they disable Yuta’s remote access, it won’t matter anymore. He’ll be directly hardwired into their system.

“Hey, no one’s allowed down━!”

Before Yuta can raise his gun, Doyoung’s own is smoking beside him. They cut down the other three peacekeepers in rapid succession, Doyoung dragging bodies away afterwards to give them room to stand while Yuta plugs a thumb drive into the mainframe and lets their virus start to do its work. Many lives had been sacrificed for the knowledge needed to make such a virus. Today, he will make those sacrifices worth it.

Underground, there’s an eerie sort of silence compared to what they’ve grown used to from the fighting above. The beeping that comes from the mainframe when control changes hands sounds much louder than it normally would. If Yuta doesn’t block it out, he thinks he can hear his own heartbeat pounding away in his chest.

“So,” Doyoung starts, sweat-stained and grimy and beautiful. “Now it’s time for your broadcast?”

“Not just that.” Yuta turns to face him fully. He wants to bask in it for a little while longer, to savor these last few moments of trust that he’d worked to earn back. “Then we’re going to blow this whole city to hell.”

Doyoung doesn’t say a word.

“Any politicians who haven’t gone into hiding are upstairs in their plush suites while all those people outside the city are still suffering,” Yuta continues. “If we set off explosions here, it will cripple Eluse’s infrastructure and its circle of oligarchs in one fell swoop. There are other teams spread out across the city with more charges.”

_ I’m sorry I didn't tell you sooner _ , he almost says, but how could he have told Doyoung in the first place? He needed the person closest to him helping the best he could, not actively trying to still his hand.

“I can’t say I’m too surprised,” Doyoung admits. “Just a broadcast seemed like much too small of a payoff. And like you once told me: the only message people really listen to is violence. Not words.”

“Stop reading into everything I say.”

“Then stop trying to be understood,” Doyoung says far too calmly. “I’m actually impressed with how you thought this out. But you do realize we’re not going to make it out if you set those off while we’re in here, don’t you?”

“You’re free to start running, if you’d like.”

“You know that’s not what I meant. I said  _ we _ .”

This is exactly what Yuta had wanted to avoid. The only way to ensure the charges went off at all, to ensure there was no chance of them being found or people evacuating, to make any sort of statement, was to stay. “I don’t have time to argue with you. Either start planting these charges or start running.”

Yuta is more relieved than he cares to admit when Doyoung frowns at him but accepts the offered bag of attachable charges. For all the preparation he’d done, for all his conviction, he truly hadn’t wanted to be alone at the end. Maybe that makes him a coward. He can’t find it in himself to care much about the designation.

_ Thank you. _

“Jaehyun, are you still with us?” Yuta radios in while Doyoung starts getting to work.

“ _ For the moment. Looks like you managed to get their attention after all.” _

“I did my best. Listen, Doyoung and I made it to the control room. It’s time to patch us into your broadcast.”

If Doyoung had pulled someone with any Eluse connections at all into their plan, it would have been helpful. They could have somehow managed to weasel their way through firewalls and made a more direct connection. But finding someone who could, at least for the moment, waltz right into the broadcast station and give them temporary free reign over the channel? The pieces have fallen into place like it’s destiny.

“ _ You’re live in twenty, both audio and video. It might only be for a minute or two until they shut down the whole network, so say what you need to say. And I also sent _ ━”

“Got it. Thanks for the assist.”

Yuta ends the call and positions himself in front of the central monitor. There’s probably still blood streaked across his face and a wild windblown look to his hair, he realizes, but he has no intentions of changing either. He’s not here to be another politician, to give the illusion of perfection. He’ll show them just what it looks like to be in the thick of revolution.

A green light flashes on the side of the monitor. Suddenly, the row of monitors in the control room come to life with the image of Yuta’s face. They may be underground, but Yuta can see it in his mind: the blanket of screens lighting up throughout the city, framed by flames and impossible to look away from. The fear in cowering faces as they turn toward their doom-bringer, coming to terms with how the time has come to look back on their sins. The false kings sitting stricken on their thrones, realizing for the first time that their golden temples have turned from protection and supremacy to prisons. And he speaks.

“Citizens of Eluse, the day has finally arrived that you’ve all fought tooth and nail to stop. You’ve heard whispers of us. You’ve entrusted your livelihood to monsters who hang empty illusions in the sky to keep you bowed beneath their thumbs while promising to protect you from our influence. Yet, in the end, they failed to stop us.”

_ Yuta is laughing arm-in-arm with two people he would gladly take a bullet for, feeling invincible. They’ve been dealing out their own brand of justice wherever they go, determined to keep the light of hope alive, and there seems to be nothing that can stop them. Together, he truly thinks they can change the world. _

“I won’t give you my name. You don’t deserve to hear it. But know that I am the face of a legion of brave men and women who see you for who you truly are, and who condemn you for your crimes. Stealing children from their beds to raise them as slaves who bow to your every whim, extorting pennies from outside these walls while the people wither and starve, razing villages that refuse to sacrifice their livelihood for your extravagance.”

_ Yuta is running with the sound of Doyoung’s scream still echoing in his ears, firing wildly at the retreating shadows though he can hardly see through the angry tears obscuring his vision. Jeno was gone. He was never coming back. Yuta had failed, all of them had failed, and he refuses to ever be put in a position like this again. He will move the sun and moon and become so powerful that snuffing out the lives of these monsters will be like crushing a cockroach under his boot. _

“There is no turning back. There is no atonement for your sins. What could you possibly do to redeem yourselves now? We’ve watched you for years, seen the insides of your rotting souls, and we know better than to think you could ever change.”

_ Yuta is silent and motionless as he stands in the middle of his new hideout, the first of his recruits settling into spaces of their own. Despite how hard he’s worked to hone and sharpen his emotions into something useful, the dull ache inside his chest is still hard to ignore. Why is it that pain is the one thing that’s stuck with him the most: of broken friendships, fallen comrades, extinguished flames? _

_ Pain has been Yuta’s greatest weakness. He intends to turn it back on them a hundredfold, the only way they’ll understand. _

“No, the only way to rip out the seeds of corruption you’ve sown is to start over from the beginning. I hope you’ve suffered today, so that you can feel the smallest fraction of the pain you’ve inflicted on so many others. May you all be judged for your choices.”

With one last defiant look into the monitor, Yuta cuts the broadcast. He’s said his piece. None of them will listen, but the speech hadn’t been for their benefit. It had been for him and those who fought at his side, a chance to put their pain into words. And now they will finally be heard.

Yuta reaches for the detonator at his waist but comes up empty, a frown making itself known on his face. Had he laid it down somewhere before contacting Jaehyun? When had he last checked if it was still here? He turns around, a questioning “Doyoung━?” on his tongue, only to feel a sharp sting bury itself at the base of his neck.

The effect isn’t immediate. A moment passes where Yuta plucks out the dart and stares stricken at the gun being lowered, not understanding. Then his vision starts to fog, his knees go weak, and he all but collapses to the floor.

“Like I said,” Doyoung says quietly, “I’m not too surprised. I saw something like this coming, so I brought along an extra toy from the armory.”

If Yuta blinks enough times, his vision almost stops swimming enough for Doyoung’s traitorous silhouette to come into focus. “What have you  _ done _ ?” he gets out, words slurring together.

“What was necessary. I won’t let you throw your life away, no matter how noble of a cause you think it’s for. I’m not losing one of the few things left in this world I give a damn about anymore.”

Yuta is beyond replying. The toxin has done its job too well, turning the space around him into nothing more than a landscape of abstract shapes and colors. As the remainder of his consciousness fades, all he can hold onto is the desperate hope that Doyoung will find it in his heart to do what needs to be done.

⚖

Yuta hardly stirs when he wakes. If Doyoung hadn’t been watching for the moment his eyes opened, he would have missed it entirely. Those eyes take in their surroundings: the smoke, the cracked wasteland they’ve set up position on, the city walls some distance away.

There’s an emptiness that settles there, Doyoung realizes, when Yuta realizes what had ━ what  _ hadn’t  _ ━ happened. He sits up and stares at those scattered wisps of smoke like they’ll give him answers.

“It was all for nothing,” Yuta says, hollow. “All our planning, all our sacrifices. Everything I dedicated my life to doing for years.”

Doyoung remains silent. He waits for the anger to come, because he knows it will.

“I can’t believe you would do this.” Not yelling, but still as barbed as if he had been. “I thought you understood better than anyone else. How could you turn around and stab me in the back after being the reason I even made it to the end?”

Yuta glowers at a single spot on the ground, flesh knuckles going white as he clenches his fists, and still Doyoung remains silent. This too will pass. It's not yet time.

“With all these implants, without the injections...you know I won’t make it very long anyway. I wanted to at least go down fighting, and you took that chance away from me.”

“Listen to yourself.” At last, Doyoung speaks. “Those aren’t the words of someone fighting to the death for something they believe in. Those are the words of someone resigned to their fate and trying to take the easy way out. That’s not the man I chose to fight alongside.”

Yuta stares at him, taken aback. Doyoung refuses to drop his gaze. He’d meant it when he said Yuta was one of the last things worth caring about. But he won’t waste his time continuing to keep someone afloat who’s dead set on diving headfirst into the water.

“You think that was easy for me?” Yuta demands. “You think the thought of death didn’t terrify me, that the thought of losing you didn’t fucking hurt?”

“Good. Get angry. Keep fighting, even if it’s with me. But don’t you dare give up.”

“You already forced me to! We took too many losses, if any of the other rebels even made it out. It’s over!”

“Your cause didn’t die with the rebellion!” Doyoung isn’t one to raise his voice, damn it, but if it chases that emptiness from Yuta’s eyes, if it makes him  _ see _ … “It’s still yours! And as long as you’re alive to keep fighting, so is every ideal you fight for.”

It’s understandable that Yuta refuses to look at him. Doyoung had been saved from a loss of purpose when Yuta had stepped back into his life, and even then he’d felt the beginnings of that sudden separation, the deep, all-consuming anxiety of  _ what next?  _ and  _ was it worth it? _

He reigns his emotions back in and admits, “I didn’t save you for the rebellion’s sake. It’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. You’re the last thing keeping me sane in this godforsaken place we’ve found ourselves in, and losing you isn’t something I can deal with. Not yet. So even if you hate what I did, even if you hate  _ me _ , please. Stay alive.”

This kind of honesty scares Doyoung more than any of the battles raging in Eluse ever could. Keeping his guard up and firing from a distance is second nature to him. He’s done it ever since he can remember. Letting that same guard down to willingly bear his unarmed heart is terrifying.

The wind continues its journey across the wastes as moments tick by. “Liar,” Yuta says, and Doyoung braces for the worst. “You told me you hated confessions.”

There’s pain in Yuta’s expression. There’s still lingering anger and grief. But there’s something else that had temporarily taken leave, that had been yanked back up from the depths: resolve.

“I said I disliked them, not that I wasn’t good at them.” He takes Yuta’s offered hand and finally feels like he’s back on solid ground. That they both are. And he decides that it’s time for one last confession of sorts.

“Just to make it clear,” he clarifies, “my opinion of Eluse is still the same as yours. The rest of the rebels insisted on keeping anyone from escaping, so they’ve barricaded themselves in every building while they wait for the storm to pass. They still think they can get away with everything they’ve done.” He unclips the tiny remote from his waist and holds it out in his palm. “They’re wrong.”

Yuta’s face is unreadable. “Doyoung…” he starts before tapering off. “The charges can’t be detonated from this distance. That’s why I needed to be━”

“You’re clever, but you had tunnel vision,” Doyoung cuts him off. “We still had access to the control center when you ended the broadcast. Who was to say we couldn’t have it broadcast the frequency of the detonators, instead? A frequency that extends just past this hill we find ourselves sitting on?”

For a long moment, Yuta stares. “I think I might be in love with you.”

“We’d better make the most of whatever time you have left, hadn’t we?” Doyoung asks, grinning, and Yuta is already bringing their intertwined hands to slam down on the detonator’s center.

⚖

Taeil is focusing on flying his newly acquired hover-transport when he hears the explosions go off, nearly making him swerve wildly to one side.

“What was that?” Donghyuck asks from the passenger’s seat.

In truth, Taeil can’t be certain, doesn’t even want to know, but he can guess. That guess is what compels him to instruct Donghyuck not to look back, glossing over the questions thrown his way.

“Do you think Doyoung is okay?” Donghyuck asks just when it sounds like he’s finished, and Taeil’s “I hope so” isn’t untruthful. Whatever chaos lies behind them, they won’t be a part of it. Somewhere out in the wasteland is a refuge for both of them that he intends to find. The only way to go now is forward.

⚖

Jaehyun may have been naïve enough to believe the ground shaking under his feet was from peacekeepers coming after him, had he not been tipped off beforehand that the rebels’ so-called plan wasn’t all that it initially seemed. Yuta has been far too quick to brush off the information he’d sent over. Jaehyun hadn’t been stupid enough not to listen in to the first part of the broadcast.

The speech wasn’t halfway finished before he was on his way to the ground floor bunker, one of the last perks of his job he thinks he’ll get to enjoy. Yuta hadn’t mentioned mass destruction outright, but Jaehyun can certainly infer. It figures. That much anger in one man had to explode one way or another; Yuta was just taking the explosion more literal than most.

The bunker still unlocks with the key Jaehyun had kept with him in case he’d needed to return. He slips inside and slams the hatch shut just as he feels the shaking start. Nina is already waiting for him inside with a cocktail in one hand and a look that says he really should have seen this coming. She’s not wrong. At least he’d realized it eventually, before it was too late.

Above his head, Jaehyun knows the rest of his colleagues are a few seconds away from being incinerated. And truthfully? He finds it hard to have sympathy for any of them, all too familiar with the terrible things they’ve done. Jaehyun’s mourning is for the years of deception and back-room dealings that will now never amount to any sort of change.

“Damn it, Yuta,” he mutters underneath his breath, and Nina passes over her half-finished cocktail with much more sympathy.

“At least we can both admit,” she says, “he does have an impressive flair for the dramatic.”

⚖

Mark and Jungwoo are in the middle of another community lunch, laughing at a story being told across the campfire, when something catches Mark’s eye. Strange. He almost thinks he sees a cloud of smoke in the distance, but he can't be too sure.

Jungwoo elbows him in the side, betting on who can down their plate of chicken the fastest, and the thought of whatever Mark might have seen vanishes as quickly as this lunch is about to. What would it matter, anyway? He’s too happy to care.

⚖

Taeyong feels the sudden shaking all the way from the Railroad headquarters. He and Johnny share a look, no words passed between them, and Taeyong just  _ knows _ . Somehow, this is Yuta and Doyoung’s doing.

“You think they made it out?” Johnny wonders aloud.

“I hope so. They’re both stubborn enough.”

“And if they succeeded, then…?”

Then what? Will Taeyong see either of them again? Doubtful. Have they made reckless, irreparable choices whose consequences will be felt for years to come? If he still knows either of them at all, probably. And where does that leave them, the Railroad, to fit into the new normal that may be waiting for them aboveground?

Taeyong finds that he doesn’t know the answer.

⚖

Illuminated by the red-gold glow of flames on the horizon, Doyoung kisses Yuta like it’s the greatest act of defiance imaginable. The detonator lays, spent, on the ground beside them. Stars and auroras burn bright in one illuminated swan song before flickering out of existence for good, one last damning lie exposed across a canvas of ruin. The smoking remains of an old empire burn and burn with no end in sight. Tomorrow, the sun will rise on a new day that’s unfamiliar and uncertain, but undeniably free. It’s over.

It’s just beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And the scales of justice hesitated in sinking to a side, unsure how to judge what they'd witnessed that day.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading if you've stuck with me this far. I really appreciate anyone who's left kudos or a comment -- please let me know what you thought!


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